REMAKING-THE 
•MISSISSIPPI- 

JOHN  •  LATHROP-MATHEWS 


LIBRARY 

OP'   THK 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Class 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 


REMAKING 
THE  MISSISSIPPI 


BY 


JOHN  LATHEOP  MATHEWS 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

Ktoer#i&e  $ws$  Cambridge 
1909 


GENEHAi 


COPYRIGHT,   1909,   BY  JOHN  LATHROP   MATHEWS 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  May  IQOQ 


CONTENTS 

I.  THE  MISSISSIPPI  SYSTEM 1 

II.  THE  HYDROLOGY  OF  THE  SYSTEM        ...  19 

III.  CONTROLLING  THE  MAJOR  BED      ....  34 

IV.  LEVEE  BUILDING  AND  MAINTENANCE         .        .  60 
V.  THE  MINOR  BED  :  REGULARIZATION      ...  79 

VI.  THE  RIVER  MOUTH 102 

VII.  THE  UPPER  MISSISSIPPI 151 

VIII.  THE  MISSOURI 169 

IX.  THE  OHIO,  AND  CANALIZATION      ....  182 

X.  LAKES-TO-THE-GULF 208 

XI.  THE  TRIBUTARIES 226 

XII.  THE  UTILIZATION  OF  THE  CHANNELS         .        .  251 

INDEX                                                                   ,  263 


188381 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Coal-towing  on  the  Ohio    (page  258)        .        .       Frontispiece 

Behind  a  levee 54 

Levee  protection  in  flood-time 54 

An  island  chute,  open       .......        84 

A  closed  chute     .        .        . 84 

Weaving  a  fascine  revetment  mattress    ....        88 
An  early  type  of  woven  brash  revetment     .        .        .        .    88 

A  hurdle  dike,  Missouri  River 94 

An  abatis  dike  at  low  water,  Missouri  River        .        .        .96 
An  abatis  dike  at  high  water,  Missouri  River  .        .        .96 
Pegging  and  finishing  a  mat        ......  136 

Making  a  foundation  mattress  ......      136 

The  Eads  jetties,  South  Pass 144 

The  broad  river  near  Memphis 144 

The  Mississippi  at  Bemidji 152 

Pokegama  dam.  The  regulating  gate  of  the  Mississippi  reser- 
voirs, Upper  Mississippi 152 

Bird's-eye  view  of  lock  and  dam  No.  2,  Mississippi  River      160 
Steamer  entering  lock  at  Keokuk,  Upper  Mississippi  .        .  160 

A  groin  to  prevent  underscour 170 

Sinking  a  groin,  Missouri  River 170 

A  bankhead  revetment,  Missouri  River    ....      174 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Beat-trap  gate  at  Lockport   .......  192 

Discharge  of  the  Chicago  Sanitary  Canal  over  the  Beartrap 

Gate 192 

Cbanoine  wickets,  Ohio  River,  dam  No.  13,  showing  the 

supporting  mechanism  and  sill  while  in  coffer  .        .        .  198 
Dam  and  lock  on  the  Monogahela    .        .        .        .        .      198  ' 
The  lock  at  Henry,  Illinois  River         ...        .        .222 

Chicago  Sanitary  and  Ship  Canal 222 

The  Yazoo  Cut.  Artificial  channel  for  the  Yazoo  into  Centen- 
nial Lake 238 

Vicksburg  Canal.   Artificial  mouth  of  the  Yazoo  from  Cen- 
tennial Lake  to  the  Mississippi  •  238 


KEMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  MISSISSIPPI  SYSTEM 

THE  map  of  North  America  presents  no 
more  striking  feature  than  the  system  of 
-waterways  which  flow  into  or  are  allied  with  the 
Mississippi  River.  By  the  "  allied  "  rivers  I  mean 
to  include,  not  only  those  which  parallel  more  or 
less  definitely  the  lower  reaches  of  the  big  stream, 
and  are  connected  with  it  by  inland  courses,  but 
also  those  more  distinct  waters  which  collect  in 
the  reservoir  of  the  Lakes  and  flow  eastward 
through  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  those  which  drain 
down  from  the  wheat-growing  slopes  of  the  Ca- 
nadian Rockies  to  make  the  Saskatchewan,  the 
Athabasca,  and  even  the  MacKenzie.  For  all 
these  streams  have  their  main  courses  in  a  great 
continental  trough  or  depression,  extending  from 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  Arctic,  between  the 
two  continental  ranges,  the  Rockies  on  the  west, 

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REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

the  Appalachians  on  the  east;  and  though  they 
are  to-day  separate  systems,  they  have  recorded 
on  their  banks  the  history  of  a  day  when  they  all 
flowed  together  to  the  southward,  and  the  pro- 
phecy of  another  day  when  they  will  all  be  linked 
into  a  unified,  commercial  system  of  carriers.  The 
land  which  they  drain  is  the  fertile  heart  of  the 
continent,  constituting  one  of  the  most  amazing 
regions  in  the  world  in  the  extent  to  which  it 
possesses  those  qualities  which  make  for  habit- 
ability  in  the  highest  degree  of  comfort  by  white 
men  and  women.  It  includes  the  greatest  wealth 
of  the  United  States  and  of  Canada :  in  the  south 
the  sugar  and  rice  of  the  Gulf  states,  and  adjacent 
to  them  some  of  the  greatest  cotton-fields  in  the 
world ;  north  of  them,  again,  the  home  of  Amer- 
ican corn ;  and  still  north  of  this  a  wheat-grow- 
ing region  which  we  shall  never  see  equaled, — 
until,  perhaps,  Siberia  comes  into  its  own, — 
extending  beyond  the  Arctic  Circle  and  almost 
to  the  shore  of  the  Polar  Sea. 

It  is  by  no  strained  figure  of  speech  that  I 
have  called  this  the  heart  of  the  continent,  for 
it  is  the  source  and  centre  of  our  circulation,  the 

2 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  SYSTEM 

fount  whence  springs  our  life-blood,  the  never- 
ceasing  engine,  stagnation  of  which  would  mean 
death  for  the  whole  organism.  It  is  therefore  by 
an  especially  bountiful  provision  of  nature  that 
in  and  from  this  heart  lead  the  most  wonderful 
arteries  for  a  national  life  which  are  provided  for 
any  people.  From  the  MacKenzie,  flowing  to  a 
frozen  sea,  through  the  Athabasca  and  the  Sas- 
katchewan, the  Winnipeg  and  the  Bed  River  of 
the  North  and  the  Minnesota,  through  Eainy 
Lake  and  Pigeon  River,  the  wheat-fields  reach 
out  not  only  to  the  cold  shores  of  the  Arctic,  and 
of  Hudson's  Bay,  but  to  the  warm  waters  of  the 
Lakes  and  the  Mississippi.  And  these,  in  turn, 
from  a  union  at  the  Chicago  Divide,  gathering 
together  waters  from  Pennsylvania,  New  York, 
and  the  Carolinas  on  the  east,  from  Montana  and 
Wyoming  on  the  west,  from  Texas  and  Okla- 
homa, and  from  Alabama  and  Tennessee,  flow 
with  them  southward  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  or, 
from  the  other  side  of  the  Divide,  make  their 
way  eastward  through  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the 
Atlantic.  A  parallel  to  that  which  the  nations 
of  Europe  have  striven  a  century  to  construct,  a 

3 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

continental  system  of  internal  waterways,  America 
has  here  ready  at  hand,  and  so  situated  that  on 
its  banks  must  be  produced  and  consumed  the 
greater  part  of  all  that  the  nation  produces  from 
fields  or  factories  or  buys  from  other  peoples. 

When  the  settlement  of  this  centre  began, 
these  rivers  formed  the  natural  channels  by  which 
people  flocked  in  and  by  which  their  cargoes 
were  handled.  Later  these  people  gave  over  the 
use  of  their  steamboats  to  develop  the  faster  and 
more  certain  railway.  To-day  these  railways  are 
congested  and  outgrown,  and  for  bulk  freights, 
at  least,  we  are  being  driven  back  to  the  water- 
ways. And  when  the  centre  is  entirely  populated, 
no  thousands  of  miles  of  railway  that  can  be  built 
there,  whether  operated  by  steam  or  by  electricity, 
by  coal  or  by  sunlight,  will  be  capable  of  serving 
its  trade.  In  that  day  these  rivers  will  come  into 
their  own,  and  will  prove  as  capable  of  absorbing 
the  flood  of  commerce  as  of  carrying  off  the  tor- 
rents of  rain  and  melting  snow. 

It  is,  however,  with  the  Mississippi  system 
proper,  and  only  to  a  lesser  extent  with  its  allies, 
that  we  are  here  concerned ;  for  it  is  the  Missis- 

4 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  SYSTEM 

sippi  which  lies  to-day  almost  unused  in  the  pre- 
sence of  the  most  rapidly  developing  and  the  most 
congested  traffic  of  the  continent.  We  are  to 
examine  here  to  what  extent  and  by  what  means 
our  engineers  have  learned  how  to  make  of  these 
streams  safe  and  reliable  carriers,  how  far  they 
have  exercised  that  control,  what  it  has  cost,  and 
what  lies  ahead  of  us  in  the  ultimate  conserva- 
tion of  this  water  resource. 

We  came  to  the  use  of  these  rivers  in  a  period 
before  the  steam-engine  was  more  than  a  useless 
toy,  and  before  even  John  Fitch's  boat  had  had 
its  initial  trip.  We  have  forced  them  to  serve  us 
in  advance  of  the  developing  of  the  science  of 
river  control  by  inventing  and  working  out  types 
of  boats  to  use  them  in  their  primitive  state.  As 
our  complex  trade  and  civilization  have  developed 
until  these  types  of  boats  no  longer  serve  them, 
we  have  found  ourselves  unable  to  bring  the 
rivers  to  a  stage  in  which  new  types  of  boats 
satisfactory  to  commerce  can  operate  econom- 
ically. And  this  is  for  several  reasons.  While  the 
river  and  the  boats  have  been  advancing  we  have 
been  working  out  a  new  type  of  government  and 

5 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

conquering  a  new  continent,  and  during  much 
of  that  time  we  have  been  fighting  and  recover- 
ing from  a  great  war.  The  duty  or  the  ability 
of  the  nation  to  enter  into  such  large  works  of 
public  improvement  has  not  been  too  clearly 
seen,  and  even  in  the  year  1908,  in  which  this  is 
written,  it  is  not  yet  possible  to  secure  Congres- 
sional consent  to  an  adjustment  and  distribution 
of  the  cost  and  the  profit  accruing  from  the 
development  of  the  streams,  or  even  to  the  de- 
velopment in  its  entirety  of  any  single  river. 
Unwilling,  or  unable  through  constitutional  lim- 
itation, to  take  up  the  larger  projects,  or  —  and 
this  has  been  very  effective  —  too  busy  with  our 
new  lands  and  new  businesses  to  give  our  atten- 
tion to  these  things,  we  have  been  contented  with 
piecemeal  work,  patching  here  and  there,  in  an 
attempt  to  carry  traffic  from  day  to  day.  It  is, 
therefore,  my  purpose  in  this  volume,  without 
attempting  to  account  the  blame  for  our  serious 
defects,  to  show  exactly  what  we  have  done  and 
by  what  means  we  have  done  it,  and  to  indicate 
as  clearly  as  I  can  the  condition  toward  which  we 
are,  or  should  be,  aiming ;  remembering  that  the 

6 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  SYSTEM 

entire  subject  of  river  development  has  been 
given  a  new  direction  in  the  past  eight  years  by 
our  increased  knowledge  of  the  possibilities  of 
the  electric  transmission  of  power. 

The  Mississippi  system  consists  of  a  veining 
of  rivers  spreading  fan-wise,  from  a  base  on  the 
shore  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  northward,  east- 
ward, and  westward  to  the  most  remote  parts  of 
the  centre  which  lie  within  the  United  States. 
Into  these  rivers  drain  1,244,000  square  miles  of 
land,  two  fifths  of  the  territory  of  the  Union  ex- 
clusive of  Alaska.  They  offer  channels  suitable 
for  navigation  from  New  York  State  to  Montana, 
from  Minnesota  to  the  Gulf.  No  other  river  sys- 
tem in  the  world  is  so  nicely  situated  with  regard 
to  the  strategy  of  trade.  Nowhere  else  is  there 
another  so  populous  and  extensive  region  of  ab 
solutely  free  trade  as  lies  within  the  tariff  walls 
of  the  United  States;  nor  is  there  another  set  of 
rivers  which  coincides  so  entirely  with  the  final 
demands  of  both  internal  and  external  trade. 
The  inevitable  trend  of  all  stable  traffic  move- 
ments is  in  two  principal  directions,  —  inward 
and  outward  between  seaboard  and  interior,  and 

7 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

between  northerly  and  southerly  zones.  The  crops 
and  manufactures  of  the  interior  must  go  to  the 
seaboard  and  thence  abroad  to  exchange  for  for- 
eign goods,  which  return  over  the  same  routes; 
and  the  temperate  zone  and  the  tropics  must  ever 
exchange  with  one  another  those  products  in 
which  each  has  a  climatic  monopoly.  So  we  see 
the  Mississippi  reaching  from  the  seaboard  to  the 
farthest  corners  of  the  interior,  a  natural  channel 
to  and  from  the  coast;  and  at  the  same  time  with 
its  main  trunk  exactly  in  the  direction  of  inter- 
zone  communication. 

As  for  the  purposes  of  traffic  and  of  engineering 
development,  so  for  our  study  we  may  divide  the 
Mississippi  into  six  principal  streams  or  collec- 
tions: the  main  river  below  St.  Louis;  the  Ohio; 
the  Chicago-Illinois  route  to  the  Lakes;  the  Up- 
per Mississippi;  the  Missouri;  and  the  minor 
tributaries.  Of  course,  it  is  only  by  a  free  use  of 
the  term  that  we  can  include  such  majestic  and 
important  waters  as  the  Tennessee,  the  Cumber- 
land, the  Arkansas,  and  the  Red  among  the  "minor 
tributaries."  These  six  divisions  comprise,  all  told, 
at  least  eighteen  thousand  miles  of  channel  sus- 

8 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  SYSTEM 

ceptible  of  development  to  a  navigable  stage,  not 
including  the  allied  waters  to  which  they  are  con- 
nected. No  accurate  estimate  of  this  amount  has 
yet  been  made,  but  it  is  certain  that  more  than 
sixteen  thousand  miles  have  actually  been  trav- 
ersed by  steamboats  and  have  been  taken  in  charge 
by  the  federal  engineers.  Leaving  out  of  con- 
sideration for  the  time  being  those  streams  which 
we  have  assembled  as  "minors,"  and  considering 
only  the  major  channels  which  constitute  what  is 
often  called  the  "trunk  line  system"  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi, and  upon  the  immediate  development  of 
which  the  traffic  of  the  centre  is  waiting,  we  may 
represent  them  graphically  and  simply  by  the 
diagram  on  page  10,  which  shows  at  the  same 
time  their  general  trend  and  the  manner  of  chan- 
nel which  it  is  proposed  to  develop  in  them. 

Had  an  engineer  designed  a  gigantic  system 
for  carrying  the  products  of  the  interior  to  the 
seaboard,  he  could  have  shaped  no  better  plan  than 
this  for  economy  in  construction  and  operation, 
for  simplicity  and  directness.  At  the  head  of  the 
Ohio  we  have  Pittsburg,  a  region  rather  than  a 
city,  one  of  the  greatest  tonnage-producing  cen- 

9 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 


Bt.Paul  ^Minneapolis 


Fittabnrg 


Memphis 


Vicksburg 


Kew  Orleans 


tres  in  the  world.  Here  originate  immense  ship- 
ments of  pig  and  manufactured  iron,  steel  in  all 
shapes,  glassware,  and  manufactured  articles  of 
many  other  kinds,  which  must  be  carried  not  only 
to  the  seaboard,  but  to  the  distributing  centres 
at  St.  Louis  and  at  the  extremities  of  the  other 
branches  of  the  waterway.  Here  are  the  shipping 
points  for  the  Pennsylvania  and  West  Virginia 
coal  mines,  whence  millions  of  tons  each  year  must 
be  carried  down  to  New  Orleans  and  the  cities  by 

10 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  SYSTEM 

the  way.  Here,  too,  are  great  sugar  refineries,  in 
which  the  syrups  of  Louisiana  are  transformed, 
and  factories  and  yards  which  require  millions 
of  feet  of  southern  lumber,  and  must  eventually 
import  wood  via  New  Orleans  from  Central  Amer- 
ica. 

At  the  head  of  the  Illinois  route,  where  the  rivers 
and  the  lakes  unite,  stands  Chicago,  the  greatest 
railway  centre  in  the  world.  Here,  at  the  head  of 
Lake  Michigan,  are  gathered  all  those  raw  ma- 
terials, sand,  iron  ore,  coal,  wood,  fibre,  pulp, 
which  make  possible  the  establishment  of  a  large 
manufacturing  centre.  Here  are  gathered  the  corn 
and  wheat  of  the  West  for  forwarding  or  for 
transmutation  into  manifold  by-products.  Hence 
go  countless  tons  of  meat  .products,  of  iron  and 
steel  goods,  of  harvesters  and  reapers,  of  furni- 
ture, of  clothing,  of  cereal  foods,  all  requiring  to 
be  borne  to  the  distant  points  of  distribution  and 
to  the  seaboard  gateway  of  the  nation.  Here,  too, 
are  collected  by  great  lake  ships  all  the  tribute 
of  the  cities  about  the  Lakes,  to  be  exchanged  for 
southern  goods  or  to  be  sent  on  down  the  rivers 
to  the  Gulf,  and  so  abroad,  and  here  the  inland 

11 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

western  cargoes  transship  for  the  farther  reaches 
of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  Erie  route. 

At  the  head  of  the  Upper  Mississippi,  where 
the  great  river  plunges  over  fall  after  fall  to  gen- 
erate eventually  more  than  two  hundred  thou- 
sand electric  horse-power,  we  have  established  the 
collecting  and  distributing  centres  of  the  North, 
St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis.  Here  is  already  pro- 
duced more  than  half  the  wheat  flour  of  America. 
Hence  go  shiploads  abroad,  for  which  no  better 
route  will  ever  open  than  that  by  water  straight 
down  to  New  Orleans.  Here  the  trade  of  the 
Northwest  and  the  new  Canada  centres.  And 
north  of  the  two  cities,  along  the  Mississippi 
itself,  are  extensive  deposits  of  iron  ore,  of  a 
grade  which  will  amply  repay  barging  it  down 
this  natural  channel  to  be  smelted  by  the  cheap 
and  abundant  coal  and  limestone  of  Illinois  and 
Missouri. 

Farther  west  still,  the  Missouri,  plunging  down 
over  the  Great  Falls,  with  a  force  of  five  hundred 
thousand  horse-power,  and  finding  its  way  across 
the  Bad  Lands  of  North  Dakota,  where  irrigation 
from  it  is  rapidly  working  a  miracle,  comes  by 

12 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  SYSTEM 

Sioux  City,  Omaha,  and  Kansas  City,  the  great 
depots  in  which  the  Northwest  gathers  in  its  yel- 
low corn  and  its  wheat,  forwarding  depots  from 
which  now  everything  goes  by  rail,  but  from 
which  in  time  the  Missouri  will  float  them  to  the 
sea.  Here,  too,  ends  the  overland  haul  of  eastern 
import  goods,  and  here  they  are  broken  up  and  dis- 
tributed to  all  the  hinterland.  And  at  the  junction 
of  these  streams,  at  the  head  of  the  main  trunk 
line,  stands  St.  Louis,  a  jobbing  centre  of  the  first 
importance,  entrance  to  all  the  rich  Arkansas 
and  Missouri  hinterland,  a  big  manufacturing 
city  and  the  controlling  gateway  for  an  immense 
east-and-west  railway  traffic. 

These  are  the  key  points  of  interior  commerce, 
and  it  is  just  in  so  far  as  it  creates  sufficient 
channels  between  them,  safe,  certain,  and  ample, 
that  the  Mississippi  establishes  itself  as  the  bur- 
den-bearer of  America. 

In  their  natural  condition  these  rivers  are  of 
course  incapable  of  this  feat.  Sufficient  for  the 
needs  of  pioneers,  their  channels  are  obstructed 
by  shifting  bars  and  altered  by  moving  banks; 
they  are  from  time  to  time  blocked  by  snags; 

13 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

they  are  interrupted  by  periods  of  low  water  and 
by  floods  which  obliterate  landmarks.  They  suffer 
in  the  course  of  years  from  the  depletion  of  the 
forests  about  their  headwaters,  and  from  the  in- 
vasion of  lumbermen  who  fill  their  courses  with 
sunken  logs.  They  require  to  be  so  altered  that 
there  shall  be  at  all  times  a  sufficient  depth  of 
water  for  profitable  navigation,  at  no  time  too 
great  a  flood  for  safe  traveling,  and  a  channel  ab- 
solutely free  from  snags,  rocks,  or  bars.  To  pro- 
vide such  channels  has  been  the  task  of  the  Corps 
of  Engineers  of  the  United  States  Army.  Aided 
by  irregular  and  insufficient  appropriations,  work- 
ing necessarily  without  any  definite  system  having 
been  adopted,  and  handicapped  at  every  turn  by 
those  political  obstacles  which  necessarily  beset 
government  employees  in  our  country,  they  have 
toiled  steadily  forward  on  individual  streams 
until  they  have  solved  in  detail  all  of  the  many 
problems  which  are  concerned  in  our  task ;  and, 
while  bringing  fairly  good  channels  to  many  parts 
of  streams,  have  shown  the  way  to  go  at  the  whole 
effectively.  This  "going  at  the  whole"  has  in  turn 
been  definitely  entered  upon,  and  we  are  in  dis- 

14 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  SYSTEM 

tant  view  of  the  day  when  the  desired  end  will 
be  attained. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  discuss  here  the  manner 
in  which  the  mode  of  expending  money  on  river 
improvements  has  grown,  or  in  detail  the  present 
condition  of  this  expenditure.  Briefly,  our  earli- 
est method  was  for  Congress  to  direct  the  person 
under  whom  each  appropriation  should  be  ex- 
pended, who  was  usually  a  treasury  officer,  and 
most  commonly  the  nearest  collector  of  revenue. 
Later  it  was  necessary  to  indicate  the  Secretary 
of  War  in  many  cases,  as  he  alone  had  under  his 
command  engineers  capable  of  making  surveys  of 
rivers  and  harbors.  Later  still,  as  the  River  and 
Harbor  Bill  became  an  established  thing,  and  the 
question  of  government  policy  on  river  improve- 
ment was  definitely  decided,  this  grew  into  an  es- 
tablished procedure.  At  the  close  of  the  Civil  War 
it  became  one  of  the  chief  fields  of  activity  of  the 
army  engineers.  Although  no  school  of  practical 
instruction  except  the  work  itself  has  ever  been 
provided  for  them,  they  have  as  a  body  continued 
to  advance  in  their  new  science,  and  have  been 
organized  into  a  regular  staff,  through  the  chan- 

15 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

nels  of  which  with  military  precision  and  red  tape 
go  surveys,  recommendations,  appropriations,  and 
other  reports  from  the  captain-engineer  in  charge, 
through  the  general-engineer  at  Washington  to 
the  Secretary  of  War,  the  Rivers  and  Harbors 
committees,  and  Congress  itself. 

In  the  early  days  of  river  improvement  much 
work  was  done  by  the  several  states ;  and  even  to- 
day work  of  the  most  valuable  character  is  being 
thus  accomplished.  Many  other  tasks,  as  the 
damming  and  locking  of  certain  coal-region  rivers, 
have  been  done  under  state  charter  by  private 
companies  entitled  to  charge  tolls.  Thus  Ohio 
developed  the  Muskingum;  Kentucky  the  Green, 
Barren,  and  other  streams ;  Arkansas  and  Louis- 
iana appropriated  money  for  the  Jefferson  Bayou, 
the  Washita,  the  Black,  and  many  other  channels 
which  were  in  the  early  days  their  only  roads. 
All  private  charters  are,  however,  now  extinct, 
and  all  navigable  waters  are  toll-free. 

Up  to  the  end  of  1907  the  development  of 
navigation  in  the  rivers  of  the  country,  under  the 
general  name  of  "  improvement,"  had  been  con- 
sidered as  a  thing  by  itself  without  regard  to  what 

16 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  SYSTEM 

other  uses  of  water  or  of  land  may  have  required 
different  treatment. 

At  that  time,  however,  there  was  appointed  an 
Inland  Waterway  Commission  by  President  Koose- 
velt,  the  creation  of  which  marked  the  breaking 
away  from  tradition  and  the  establishment  of  a 
new  policy.  Under  this  new  policy,  which  is  one 
of  the  utmost  conservation  of  all  our  national  re- 
sources, the  waters  are  to  be  developed  for  all  pur- 
poses simultaneously.  Keservoiring  to  prevent 
floods,  to  develop  and  steady  water  powers  and 
to  maintain  navigation,  will  be  done  more  exten- 
sively. The  planting  of  forests  to  reserve  water 
naturally  will  be  more  largely  indulged  in.  Tree 
planting  to  prevent  soil  wash  will  become  a  fea- 
ture, and  the  use  of  the  rivers  for  irrigation  and 
for  power  will  be  made  to  go  far  toward  paying 
for  the  improvement  of  the  same  streams  for  navi- 
gation. 

All  told,  the  national  government  has  expended 
on  the  Mississippi  and  its  branches  between  two 
hundred  and  two  hundred  and  fifty  million  dol- 
lars. Much  of  this  sum  has  been  spent  in  learning. 
Much  of  it  has  been  wasted.  Much  of  it  remains, 

17 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

however,  in  permanently  improved  channels,  and 
in  public  works  ample  for  their  task  for  a  century. 
As  a  result  of  the  expenditure,  there  are  now  in 
the  principal  branches  of  the  trunk  system  the 
following  channels :  in  the  lower  Mississippi,  from 
the  mouth  to  Red  River  (300  miles),  ample  water 
for  the  largest  ocean  steamship ;  from  Red  River 
to  Cairo,  9  feet  at  all  stages  and  usually  10  feet, 
in  a  channel  250  feet  wide;  from  Cairo  to  St. 
Louis,  an  uncertain  channel  nominally  8  feet,  but 
sometimes  reduced  to  5  feet;  from  there  to  La 
Salle,  100  miles  from  Chicago,  6  feet  in  the  Mis- 
sissippi and  7  in  the  Illinois;  in  the  Upper  Missis- 
sippi above  the  Illinois,  4J  feet  to  St.  Paul,  with 
usually  5  feet,  and  an  incomplete  5-foot  lock  sys- 
tem to  Minneapolis;  in  the  Missouri,  an  uncertain 
and  ill-kept  channel  practically  abandoned  by  the 
engineers  and  by  traders,  with  usually  3  or  4  feet 
at  summer  stages  as  far  as  Kansas  City;  and  in 
the  Ohio,  an  uncertain  river  perhaps  20  inches  to 
3  feet  at  lowest  water  over  the  worst  bars,  with  a 
heavy  commerce  in  flood  time,  and  with  its  upper 
reaches  being  slowly  improved  to  9  feet  of  depth 
by  a  system  of  locks  and  collapsible  dams. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  HYDROLOGY  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

A  PROPER  understanding  of  the  problems 
and  methods  of  the  development  of  navi- 
gability in  a  river  and  the  control  of  its  waters 
and  their  channel,  necessarily  depends  upon  these 
things,  —  a  knowledge  of  the  hydrology  of  the 
stream  and  its  tributaries,  of  the  land  on  which 
the  rain  supply  falls,  and  of  the  bed  in  which  it 
finally  locates  itself.  On  all  of  these  matters  our 
engineers  have  made  long  and  detailed  reports  of 
the  several  parts ;  though,  owing  to  the  divided 
nature  of  our  public  works  among  cabinet  de- 
partments, there  is  no  official  and  complete 
report  upon  either  the  hydrology  or  the  char- 
acter of  the  beds  and  the  navigable  length  of 
the  streams.  One  finds  river  measurements  in 
the  War  Department,  supplied  from  the  reports 
of  Major  Humphreys  and  Lieutenant  Abbot, 
which  do  not  agree  with  those  of  the  Census 
Bureau,  nor  do  either  of  these  agree  with  the 

19 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

figures  of  the  Geologic  Survey.  Nor  does  the 
latter  always  agree  with  itself.  For  accurate  fig- 
ures on  stream  length,  it  is  often  necessary  to  go 
to  a  certain  very  complete  report  on  our  streams 
prepared  by  M.  Vetillart  for  the  Public  Works 
Department  of  the  French  government.  Thus  we 
find  in  the  Census  and  in  the  Irrigation  papers  two 
reports  on  the  drainage  area  of  the  Missouri,  one 
of  527,000  square  miles,  the  other  of  492,000. 
The  navigable  length  of  the  river  is  given  by  the 
Treasury  Department  as  3127  miles,  the  total 
length  of  the  same  river  by  the  Missouri  River 
Commission  as  2503  miles,  and  the  navigable 
length  as  2378  miles. 

Such  errors  are  not  confined  to  the  Missouri. 
It  is  not  my  purpose,  however,  to  comment  on 
them  more  than  to  point  out  some  of  the  diffi- 
culties which  still  stand  in  the  way  of  a  complete 
and  accurate  account  of  these  rivers.  Estimates 
of  the  average  flow  of  the  Ohio  vary  as  much  as 
twenty-five  per  cent. 

When  the  government  figures  on  which  we 
must  base  our  own  decisions  vary  so  widely,  it  is 
difficult  to  present  a  hydrological  table  for  which 

20 


THE  HYDROLOGY  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

respect  can  be  expected.  Nevertheless,  having 
compared  the  figures  prepared  by  Mr.  Greenleaf 
with  those  of  the  Geologic  Survey  and  whatever 
others  could  be  obtained,  I  believe  the  following 
table,  which  follows  pretty  closely  the  Census 
estimate  in  most  points,  gives  a  view  of  the  crea- 
tion of  these  rivers  that  will  not  far  mislead.  At 


RlVBB. 

A 

B 

C 

D 

E 

F 

G 

H 

I 

J 

Upper  Mississippi  . 
Missouri  .... 
Ohio                   . 

ns.ooo1 

527,0003 
214  000s 

347 
19.6 
43 

27 
12 

?o 

.688 
.178 
740 

2.56 
1.14 
5  61 

.144 
.047 
163 

25 
25 
35 

1182 
94* 
158 

550 

600 
1200 

3,720 
3,500 
5  000 

Arkansas      .     .     . 
White  ... 

161,0006 
28  OOO6 

28.3 
42 

16 

.300 
750 

1.55 
4  29 

.024 
161 

4 
4  5 

48 
20 

250 
120 

1,513 
630 

Red 

97  OOO7 

38  3 

-|Q 

515 

1  86 

036 

3  5 

50 

180 

1  576 

Minnesota 
Wisconsin 
Illinois     . 
St.  Croix. 
St.  Francis 
Yazoo 
(  Entire 
\  Mississippi     .    . 

16,027 
12,280 
29,013 
7,576 
7,989 
12,794 

1,259,0008 

28 
35 
37 
30 
41.3 
53.3 

23 

30 
24 
37 

70 
70 

.474 

.928 
.7 
.825 
2.130 
2.749 

.505 

3.75 

4.5 
6.15 

.031 

.438 
.384 

3.5 
5 

175 

17 
35 

664 

36 
80 

1800 

'240 
350 

500 
1,100 

20,144 

A,  area  of  drainage  in  square  miles. 

B,  rainfall  in  inches  per  year. 

C,  per  cent  of  run-off,  or  rain  reaching  river. 

D,  average  flow  in  second-feet  for  each  square  mile  of  drainage. 

E,  average  high-water  flow,  second-feet  per  square  mile. 

F,  average  low-water  flow  in  second-feet  per  square  mile. 

G,  minimum  discharge  in  thousands  of  cubic  feet  per  second. 
H,  average  discharge  in  thousands  of  cubic  feet  per  second. 
I,  maximum  discharge  in  thousands  of  cubic  feet  per  second. 

J,  total  annual  discharge,  normal,  in  thousand-millions  of  cubic  feet  (that  is, 
three  sets  of  ciphers  omitted). 


Humphreys  and  Abbot,  169,000. ;  Census,  179,635. 

Geologic  Survey  and  H.  and  A.,  105. 

Geologic  Survey,  492,000 ;  H.  and  A.,  518,000. 

Geologic  Survey  and  H.  and  A.,  120. 

Census,  207,000.  6  Census,  together,  184,742. 

Census,  92,721.  «  H.  and  A.,  1,244,000. 

21 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

any  rate,  it  establishes  their  relations  among  them- 
selves with  considerable  accuracy. 

From  these  figures  it  is  at  once  apparent  that 
the  tributaries  of  the  main  stream  vary  as  widely 
in  character  as  in  geographical  distribution,  from 
the  extreme  of  the  Missouri,  with  but  twelve  per 
cent  of  the  water  which  falls  on  its  enormous 
watershed  reaching  the  river,  to  the  Yazoo,  which 
brings  to  the  Mississippi  seventy  per  cent  of  the 
torrential  rains  which  flood  its  valley.  Were  the 
conditions  of  rainfall  and  run-off  which  prevail 
in  the  Yazoo  maintained  over  the  Missouri  water- 
shed, that  river  would  have  an  average  discharge 
exceeding  the  maximum  floods  of  the  Ohio,  in- 
stead of  little  more  than  half  the  average  of  that 
stream  as  now,  and  if  maintained  over  the  whole 
valley,  would  give  the  Mississippi  an  average  dis- 
charge of  about  3,600,000  second-feet. 

Shut  off  from  the  eastern  and  western  seacoasts 
by  ranges  of  mountains,  the  Mississippi  Valley 
draws  most  of  its  moisture  from  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico.  As  is  well  known  to  those  who  follow 
the  daily  weather  maps,  cyclonic  storms  move  in- 
land from  that  body,  up  the  Mississippi,  and  pass 

22 


THE  HYDROLOGY  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

over  either  by  way  of  the  Great  Lakes  and  the 
St.  Lawrence,  or  by  way  of  the  Upper  Ohio  and 
New  York.  These  storms  bring  moist  winds  and 
heavy  masses  of  clouds,  from  which  the  rain 
descends  heavily  as  they  move  inland,  causing 
the  rainfall  at  the  lower  part  of  the  main  Missis- 
sippi to  be  many  times  heavier  than  that  above ; 
the  record  rainfall  at  New  Orleans  being  more 
than  nine  inches  in  a  single  day  and  at  Vicks- 
burg  nearly  eleven  inches  in  thirty-six  hours. 
This  progress  of  the  main  storms  up  the  valley 
is  the  cause  of  the  high  rainfall  and  steady  dis- 
charge of  the  Yazoo  and  the  St.  Francis,  which 
lie  directly  in  the  course  of  the  moisture  streams, 
and  draw  their  waters  partially  from  broad,  low, 
forested  areas  and  partly  from  the  front  ridges 
of  hills  which  border  the  major  bed  of  the  river. 
The  first  obstacles  in  the  path  of  the  storms 
are  the  Ozark  Mountains,  which  draw  down  a 
heavy  flow  of  moisture.  This  goes  in  part  into 
the  White  River  of  Arkansas,  giving  it  the  high 
run-off  of  three  quarters  of  a  cubic  foot  a  second 
from  each  square  mile  of  its  watershed,  and  part 
to  the  St.  Francis  and  the  Arkansas,  partially 

23 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

making  up  to  the  latter  for  the  dryness  of  its 
upper  watershed. 

Those  storms  which  move  north  to  the  east- 
ward of  the  Mississippi  encounter  the  mountains 
and  high  hills  of  central  and  eastern  Tennessee, 
where  they  create  the  Tennessee  and  the  Cumber- 
land, and  passing  beyond  are  still  further  denuded 
of  water  by  the  higher  peaks  of  the  headwaters 
of  the  Ohio,  to  which  stream  they  give  the  co- 
pious abundance  of  an  average  of  forty-three 
inches  of  annual  rainfall.  Those  which  have  come 
up  the  valley  and  passed  the  Ozarks  encounter 
near  the  Great  Lakes  cooler  currents  from  the 
northwest,  which  cause  further  precipitation  and 
provide  for  the  upper  central  valley  a  fairly  steady 
though  not  excessive  supply  of  moisture.  But  the 
great  region  west  of  the  Ozarks,  comprising  the 
watersheds  of  the  Red,  the  Arkansas,  and  the 
Missouri,  receives  but  a  small  part  of  the  mois- 
ture-laden air  from  the  Gulf,  and  from  that  but  a 
sparse  precipitation. 

Still  another  factor  enters  into  the  problem  of 
the  rivers,  in  the  distribution  of  this  water  supply 
through  the  year.  It  so  happens  that  the  Ohio, 

24 


THE  HYDROLOGY  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

with  a  copious  rainfall,  receives  the  greatest  part 
of  this  in  January  and  February,  with  some  in 
December  and  March.  At  that  time  in  the  year 
the  hillsides  are  frozen  and  absorb  little,  the  sun 
is  obscured  and  the  temperature  low,  so  that  there 
is  slight  evaporation.  Consequently  the  bulk  of 
the  water  finds  its  way  quickly  into  the  streams, 
which  are  swollen  in  those  months  by  sudden 
freshets  of  enormous  height,  the  river  sometimes 
rising  sixty-five  feet  above  low  water  at  Cincin- 
nati. These  floods  do  not  come  every  year,  but 
in  occasional  years  when  the  precipitation  in  the 
winter  months  becomes  abnormal.  It  has  at  times 
exceeded  normal  in  those  months  by  seventy-five 
per  cent.  As  the  spring  advances  even  equal  rains 
upon  the  Ohio  produce  less  effect  upon  the  stream 
and  its  tributaries,  the  Cumberland  and  Tennes- 
see never  sending  down  a  late  flood,  and  the  Ohio 
itself  never  but  once  having  produced  an  August 
freshet.  Absorption  and  evaporation  take  care  of 
the  rainfall  until,  left  to  its  natural  conditions, 
the  Ohio  becomes  but  a  fortieth  of  its  high-water 
self.  Its  lowest  water  is  about  the  end  of  October, 
and  there  is  often  a  small  rise  in  November. 

25 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

A  different  condition  obtains  on  the  Upper 
Mississippi.  This  river  springs  from  a  series  of 
lakes  in  a  heavily  wooded  region,  from  which  there 
is  an  approximately  uniform  flow  throughout  the 
year.  After  a  slight  April  rise  from  early  rain 
and  melting  snow,  the  main  rise  comes  in  the  late 
spring,  and  continues  into  June,  though  some- 
times passing  its  climax  much  earlier.  Many  of 
its  tributaries,  such  as  the  Wisconsin,  preserve  a 
similar  character,  the  latter  rising  to  a  total 
discharge  of  .928  cubic  foot  per  square  mile — a 
sharp  contrast  to  the  Minnesota,  a  prairie  stream 
sometimes  considered  the  original  prolongation  of 
the  Mississippi,  which,  with  a  larger  watershed, 
produces  but  half  the  flow.  The  combination  of 
all  these  streams  is  sufficient  to  send  high  water 
down  the  Upper  Mississippi  usually  in  May,  but 
frequently  as  early  as  March  or  as  late  as  June. 
Its  high-water  flow  alone,  however,  is  not  suffi- 
cient to  produce  a  freshet  in  the  lower  river. 

The  Missouri,  with  its  enormous  watershed, 
receives  but  a  scanty  rainfall  during  the  months 
when  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  are  at  their  max- 
imum. Although  swelling  a  little  in  April,  not 

26 


THE  HYDROLOGY  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

until  May  does  its  water  come  in  semi-abundance, 
May  and  June  each  frequently  having  as  much  as 
all  the  preceding  three  months.  When  the  heavy 
rains  do  come  they  find  the  soil  parched,  and 
sink  in  and  are  lost,  or,  before  reaching  rivers, 
are  dried  up  by  the  hot  sun.  Melting  snows  in 
the  mountains  produce  some  aid  throughout  the 
summer,  especially  on  the  main  river  above  Great 
Falls  and  on  the  Upper  Platte ;  but  the  rise  which 
moves  slowly  down  the  Missouri  in  May  and  June, 
though  drawn  from  more  than  twice  the  area, 
attains  at  most  to  but  half  the  magnitude  of  the 
Ohio  freshets.  If  it  comes  late  for  the  Upper 
Mississippi  it  passes  harmlessly  out  to  sea,  but  in 
those  exceptional  years  when  the  Upper  Missis- 
sippi is  delayed  or  a  late  second  rise  takes  place 
therein,  and  the  two  become  synchronous,  there 
is  witnessed  one  of  those  famous  June  floods 
which  have  in  earlier  and  unleveed  days  spelled 
disaster  to  planters  along  the  lower  river.  The 
river  falls  in  September,  but  reaches  its  lowest 
stage  in  November,  as  the  ground  freezes. 

Sometimes  these  conditions  are  widely  altered. 
Thus  the  year  1903  saw  all  traditions  upset,  when 

27 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

a  mighty  freshet  from  the  Ohio  in  February  found 
the  lower  tributaries  above  the  Arkansas  in  flood, 
and  made  new  records  in  the  valley,  to  be  fol- 
lowed three  months  later  by  high  water  proceed- 
ing from  sudden  and  extreme  rainfall  on  both 
the  Upper  Mississippi  and  the  Lower  Missouri, 
which  sent  those  two  rivers  into  the  still  high 
stream  below  Cairo  with  large  resultant  damage. 
But  that  is  unusual.  The  season  on  the  united 
river  comprises  in  most  years  one,  or  even  two 
very  sudden  high  waters  from  the  Ohio  in  Feb- 
ruary or  March,  becoming  dangerous  only  in  ex- 
ceptional years  and  by  virtue  of  other  influences ; 
a  period  of  easier  water  following  them,  and  then 
a  gradual  swelling  from  the  upper  river  through 
May,  added  to  by  lower  streams  and  reaching  its 
maximum  as  the  tardy  Missouri  pours  forth  its 
tawny  volume  in  time  to  make  good  the  defi- 
ciency of  the  decreasing  central  rivers.  Reaching 
its  maximum  toward  late  June,  this  then  subsides. 
The  Ohio  is  shrunken  as  quickly  as  it  rose,  the 
Cumberland  and  the  Tennessee  are  down,  the 
Arkansas  has  fallen,  and  the  Red  as  well,  and  by 
the  middle  or  end  of  August  the  whole  lower  sys- 

28 


THE  HYDROLOGY  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

tern  has  usually  dropped  to  that  depressed  condi- 
tion known  in  the  valley  as  "summer  water," 
which  is  only  alleviated  by  the  Missouri,  and 
which  in  some  years  may  not  fall  below  six  or 
seven  feet  on  any  gauge,  and  again  may  show 
markings  close  to  or  below  zero  of  the  scale.  This 
low  water  is  of  varying  duration.  Sometimes  it 
lasts  but  a  few  weeks.  Sometimes,  as  in  1901,  it 
holds  into  December.  Usually  it  is  broken  up 
by  the  fall  rains  on  the  Upper  Mississippi  and  a 
gradual  improvement  on  the  Ohio,  marked  fre- 
quently in  November  and  December  by  sharp 
waves  from  the  latter  as  the  first  winter  snows 
are  melted  by  belated  rains. 

The  effects  of  these  floods  and  low  waters  on 
the  several  streams  are  as  varied  as  are  the  streams 
themselves.  The  Ohio  comes  down  from  an  aged 
and  well-established  region,  in  which  its  chan- 
nel has  been  worn  to  the  rock.  It  comes  clear  of 
sediment  except  when  the  Allegheny  or  some 
similar  tributary  is  pouring  a  deluge  into  it,  and 
even  then  has  but  a  small  amount  compared  with 
some  of  the  others.  It  is  essentially  a  rock-ribbed, 
clear- water  stream.  The  Upper  Mississippi  also 

29 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

comes  down  to  the  Chain  of  Kocks  above  St.  Louis 
almost  guiltless  of  the  stains  of  erosion,  and  travel- 
ing to  a  considerable  extent  in  a  bed  permanently 
shaped  by  a  rocky  contour.  Not  so  the  Missouri. 
That  stream,  which  has  rightly  earned  the  nick- 
name of  "Big  Muddy,"  gains  that  soubriquet  in 
the  long  middle  reach  between  the  point  where 
it  leaps  forth  from  the  confining  fastnesses  of  the 
Kocky  Mountains  and  the  point  a  thousand  miles 
farther  down  where  it  enters  a  land  of  fairly 
steady  rainfall  and  general  conditions.  In  that 
middle  stretch  it  flows  through  the  well-known 
"  Bad  Lands  "  of  western  Dakota  and  Montana. 
There  every  rain  of  however  small  proportions 
has  its  erosive  effect,  and  when  the  May  and 
June  downpour  comes  upon  the  dusty  ground  it 
runs  with  fast  accumulating  burden  of  silt  to  the 
Missouri.  So  fast  does  this  accumulate  and  so 
great  is  the  burden — which,  indeed,  shapes  the 
whole  control  problem  of  the  Missouri  and  Lower 
Mississippi — that  the  suspended  matter  at  times 
rises  to  one  thirty-first  by  weight  of  the  whole 
moving  stream.  This  silt  must  be  carried  to  the 
sea,  and  the  effect  of  its  carriage,  and  the  gen- 

30 


THE  HYDROLOGY  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

eral  works  which  aid  to  keep  it  on  its  way,  will 
be  described  in  later  chapters. 

As  the  basis  for  all  leveling  must  be  a  proper 
bench-mark,  so  on  the  Mississippi  the  corps  o£ 
engineers  have  established  certain  optional  marks 
at  convenient  points  on  the  main  river  and  all  its 
tributaries,  and  from  these  levels  as  "  zero  "  have 
at  many  points  erected  gauges  by  which  to  read 
and  record  the  height  and  movement  of  the  river 
locally,  and  to  establish  the  proper  grading  of 
improvement  works.  These  zero  marks  are  at 
each  point  supposed  to  represent  "low  water" 
of  some  character,  generally  in  a  conveniently 
chosen  year  or  on  an  average  of  several  years. 
They  are  referred  for  final  definition  by  way  of 
"Cairo  datum"  or  "Memphis  datum"  to  the 
mean  level  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  at  Biloxi,  and 
beyond  that  they  have  no  other  meaning  that  is 
other  than  relative.  The  "  height "  of  the  river 
at  any  point  or  time  as  referred  to  the  gauge 
means  not  the  depth,  nor  the  navigable  depth, 
nor  the  actual  height  of  the  existing  rise,  but  the 
present  level  of  the  surface  above  the  zero  mark 
on  the  local  gauge.  Thus,  at  St.  Louis  "  normal " 

31 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

low  water  is  about  four  feet  above  zero  on  the 
gauge.  At  Memphis,  in  December,  1901,  the 
river  stood  two  tenths  of  a  foot  below  zero.  Yet 
at  the  time  there  was  ample  water  over  all  bars 
even  in  the  "Plum  Point  region"  for  navigation 
as  there  carried  on,  and  in  the  river  in  front  of 
the  gauge  the  water  was  more  than  one  hundred 
feet  deep. 

These  gauge  readings,  however,  serve  a  very 
good  purpose  aside  from  the  aid  they  give  to  the 
navigator.  Current  velocities  at  given  stages  hav- 
ing been  determined  by  experiment,  the  officers 
of  the  Weather  Bureau,  who  have  this  depart- 
ment of  river  control  in  charge,  are  able  to  de- 
termine the  speed  with  which  a  flood  is  moving 
off.  Knowing  the  amount  of  rain  which  has  fallen 
on  a  watershed,  and  the  condition  of  that  water- 
shed with  regard  to  its  ability  to  retain  moisture 
at  that  time,  they  are  able  to  determine  with 
much  exactness  the  amount  of  water  which  will 
enter  a  stream,  the  speed  with  which  it  will  come, 
and  the  height  to  which  the  rivers  below  will  rise. 
This  information  they  send  out  in  daily  bulletins 
in  time  of  danger  to  cities  and  villages  ahead 

32 


THE  HYDROLOGY  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

of  the  flood,  and  furnish  also  to  navigators ;  so 
that  those  who  are  to  be  affected  by  the  rise  of 
the  waters  will  have  accurate  and  timely  warn- 
ing. 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  with  the  cutting 
away  of  forests,  the  progress  of  irrigation,  and  the 
cultivation  of  the  soil,  the  hydrology  of  some  of 
the  branches  of  the  Mississippi  is  slowly  changing. 
How  large  and  how  influential  these  changes  are 
can  be  determined  only  by  close  study  and  must 
depend  upon  an  accurate  survey.  Meanwhile 
many  methods  have  been  adopted  by  which  the 
regime  may  be  artificially  modified,  as  by  storing 
flood  waters,  by  planting  trees  so  that  a  forest 
cover  may  retain  the  rainfall,  and  by  preparing 
the  earth  to  absorb  the  rain.  These  methods  will 
be  considered  more  at  length  in  the  chapters 
following. 


CHAPTER  III 

CONTROLLING  THE  MAJOR  BED 

THE  problem  of  river  control  for  the  purposes 
of  navigation  and  for  the  prevention  of 
floods  is  but  a  part  of  the  general  problem  of  the 
conservation  of  a  river;  though  it  is  but  recently 
that  this  larger  problem  has  come  into  recogni- 
tion. The  proper  conservation  of  the  water  fall- 
ing upon  any  given  drainage  shed  requires  that 
from  the  time  it  falls  until  it  is  merged  in  the 
sea  it  be  so  conducted  as  to  force  it  to  yield  its 
maximum  advantage  for  agriculture  and  for  for- 1 
estry,  the  largest  possible  percentage  of  the  power 
which  is  developed  by  its  descent  from  the  land 
on  which  it  lights  to  sea  level,  and  the  largest 
good  to  navigation ;  while  at  the  same  time  carry- 
ing away  a  minimum  of  soil  and  doing  the  least 
damage  to  the  region  through  which  it  flows.  _> 
This  requires  that  about  the  sources  of  principal 
streams  considerable  forest  areas  be  maintained, 
to  prevent  erosion,  to  retain  silt,  and  to  hold  in 

34 


CONTROLLING  THE  MAJOR  BED 

check,  beneath  the  forest  cover,  a  considerable 
amount  of  the  rainfall  both  as  an  ameliorating 
effect  upon  climate  and  for  the  purpose  of  pro- 
viding a  fund  for  supplying  the  river  in  dry 
spells.  It  requires  also  the  establishment  of  reser- 
voirs about  the  headwaters  of  principal  and  even 
of  the  smaller  streams,  by  the  enlargement  of 
lakes  and  ponds  by  dams,  and  the  storage  of 
•water  in  ravines  and  gorges  by  the  same  means, 
to  hold  back  excessive  rainfall  and  prevent  floods 
in  the  valley,  while  at  the  same  time  providing  a 
better  low-water  flow.  It  requires  the  erection  of 
dams  at  every  quick  water  along  the  course,  for 
a  double  purpose :  first,  for  the  benefit  of  navi- 
gation, providing  deep  water  over  the  shoals  of 
the  rapids;  and  second,  to  create  a  definite 
"  head  "  of  water  at  which  the  power  in  the  fall 
of  the  stream  can  be  developed.  This  power, 
which  in  many  rivers  would  be  very  small  in  low- 
water  seasons,  is  multiplied  in  value  by  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  forests  and  reservoirs,  which  make 
the  flow  uniform ;  and  if  properly  handled  for 
the  public  gain  or  properly  taxed,  will  pay  back 
in  return  the  cost  of  making  the  improvements. 

35 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

Farther  down,  the  development  of  the  stream  re- 
quires that  flood  waters  which  are  notdmpounded 
shall  be  retained  within  banks,  and  not  allowed 
to  overflow  adjacent  lands;  and  that  the  low- 
water  flow  shall  be  so  restricted  and  in  so  per- 
manently established  a  channel  as  always  to  pro- 
vide a  safe  way  for  navigation. 

For  the  latter  purposes,  that  is,  for  preventing 
floods  and  providing  a  channel  in  the  lower 
courses,  several  measures  are  undertaken:  first, 
the  erection  of  false  upper  banks  or  levees  along 
the  river's  course  to  restrain  floods;  second,  the  re- 
tention of  water  in  local  artificial  reservoirs  along 
the  stream  itself,  in  a  series  of  pools  separated  by 
dams  and  connected  by  locks;  third,  the  establish- 
ment of  permanent  courses  by  the  artificial  harden- 
ing of  the  river  bank  to  prevent  erosion ;  fourth, 
by  removing  foreign  substances  and  preventing 
them  from  entering  the  stream ;  fifth,  by  so  con- 
tracting the  low- water  channel  by  dikes,  dams, 
and  other  means  as  to  force  the  water  to  flow  in 
a  narrower  and  therefore  deeper  bed;  sixth,  the 
removal  of  natural  obstructions,  such  as  bars,  rock 
ledges,  etc.,  by  dredging  or  blasting.  All  these 

36 


CONTROLLING  THE  MAJOR  BED 

means  in  various  combinations  are  used  on  the 
several  arms  of  the  Mississippi  system,  the  use  of 
each  being  dictated  by  the  nature  of  the  river  and 
of  the  bed  in  which  it  flows, — by  the  hydrology 
of  the  stream  and  the  character  of  the  bottom. 

Every  river  has,  in  fact,  in  its  natural  condi- 
tion, two  beds,  the  major  and  the  minor.  The 
major  bed  of  a  stream  is  the  territory  it  occupies 
in  time  of  flood.  When  it  has  risen  "out  of  its 
banks"  and  has  begun  to  spread  over  adjacent 
lands  and  swamps,  it  quickly  fills  and  flows  in  its 
major  bed.  The  minor  bed  is  the  bed  between  the 
banks,  in  which  it  flows  at  all  ordinary  stages.  On 
the  Mississippi  River  below  Cairo  these  banks  are 
from  twenty  to  forty  feet  above  ordinary  low 
water,  —  zero  of  the  gauge, — and  are  separated 
a  distance  of  from  one  half  to  three  miles.  In 
between  them,  in  a  still  more  constricted  channel, 
the  river  flows  at  extreme  low  water.  When  big 
floods  come,  sometimes  attaining  a  height  of  fifty 
or  even  fifty-five  feet  at  Cairo  above  extreme  low 
water,  it  flows  over  even  the  higher  of  these  al- 
luvial banks,  and  filling  the  swamps  spreads  back 
to  the  distant  hills,  often  before  the  levees  were 

37 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

built  attaining  a  width  of  forty  miles.  This  over- 
flow strip,  a  region  of  fine  alluvial  land,  eight 
hundred  miles  long  and  forty  wide,  from  the  Chick- 
asaw  Bluffs  on  the  east  to  Crowley's  Kidge  on  the 
west,  is  the  major  bed  of  the  Lower  Mississippi. 
Not  only  the  preservation  of  this  immense 
area,  twenty-nine  thousand  square  miles,  but  the 
needs  of  navigation  and  of  health  require  that 
the  river  should  be  retained  as  nearly  as  possible 
in  the  same  bed  at  high  water  as  it  occupies  at 
lower  stages;  that  is,  though  it  rises  many  feet 
above  its  banks,  it  should  be  so  shaped  that  it 
would  still  flow  in  exactly  the  same  direction  at 
all  points,  folio  wing  the  same  bends  and  crossings. 
Though  this  state  has  not  yet  been  reached,  and 
the  river  is  still  allowed  to  "cut  corners"  at  flood, 
it  has  at  least  been  approximated  by  the  construc- 
tion of  artificial  banks  upon  the  natural  ones, 
sometimes  to  a  height  of  thirty  feet.  These  arti- 
ficial banks,  of  which  there  are  now  about  fourteen 
hundred  miles  along  the  lower  river,  are  in  fact 
nothing  but  earthen  dams,  more  or  less  parallel 
with  the  course  of  the  stream,  against  which  it 
stands  at  high  water,  often  to  the  very  top.  As 

38 


CONTROLLING  THE  MAJOR  BED 

this  is  the  example  of  levee  protection  not  only 
upon  the  Mississippi  but  in  the  world,  it  will  serve 
here  to  illustrate  the  whole  subject  of  major  bed 
development. 

In  order  to  understand  this,  however,  it  is 
necessary  to  have  a  clear  view  of  the  river  itself 
and  the  region  through  which  it  flows.  As  we  have 
seen  in  the  chapter  on  hydrology,  the  Mississippi 
is  made  up  of  three  great  divisions, — the  Ohio, 
the  Missouri,  and  the  Upper  Mississippi.  To  these 
there  was  anciently  added  a  fourth,  the  greatest  of 
them  all,  which  came  down  from  the  Great  Lakes 
at  Chicago  by  way  of  what  is  now  the  Illinois  Eiver. 
Of  these  three  divisions,  the  greatest  in  volume  is 
the  Ohio.  The  other  two  are  about  equal.  The 
Ohio  comes  down  from  a  steep,  mountain  country, 
in  a  permanent  rock-compelled  bed,  with  very  few 
places  in  which  it  can  make  a  decided  shift  in 
its  location.  It  is  naturally  subject  to  sharp  high 
floods,  and  overflows  considerable  areas  in  its  own 
valley.  The  Missouri  comes  down  from  the  west- 
ern mountains  over  and  through  a  vast  plain  where 
any  sudden  waves  are  gradually  lengthened  out, 
much  is  lost  by  evaporation  and  little  addition  is 

39 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

received  from  tributaries.  It  flows  between  soft 
banks,  which  are  in  turn  shaped  in  the  last  resort 
by  high  bluffs,  located  in  general  from  a  mile  to 
two  miles  apart.  Similar  bluffs,  of  great  height 
and  beauty,  border  the  Upper  Mississippi.  But  this 
stream,  which  once  had  a  far  greater  volume  than 
it  has  in  modern  times,  comes  from  a  country  vastly 
different  from  that  which  gives  rise  to  either  of  the 
others.  The  northern  part  of  Minnesota  and  Wis- 
consin is  a  region  of  level  plateaus,  covered  with 
heavy  woods,  and  richly-grassed  prairies.  Millions 
of  acres  are  covered  with  lakes  and  swamps  in  which 
are  stored  the  spring  rains  and  melting  snows, 
to  flow  out  with  fairly  steady  discharge  during 
the  summer  months.  Though  heavy  rains  send  a 
spring  rise  and  occasionally  high  water  later  in 
the  year  down  the  upper  river,  it  nowhere  attains 
heights  such  as  do  the  freshets  of  the  Ohio. 

Not  far  from  the  confluence  of  the  Mississippi 
and  the  Ohio,  and  about  one  hundred  and  eighty 
miles  downstream  from  the  mouth  of  the  Mis- 
souri, the  Mississippi  breaks  through  a  spur  of 
the  Ozark  Mountains  and  enters  a  region  entirely 

different  from  that  occupied  by  either  of  the 

40 


CONTROLLING  THE  MAJOR  BED 

three  upper  streams.  Between  Cape  Girardeau 
and  the  city  of  Commerce,  Missouri,  the  river 
seems  trapped  in  a  cul-de-sac,  the  bordering  cliffs 
crossing  directly  over  its  course.  It  twists  and 
turns  tortuously,  and,  in  a  stretch  of  channel  re- 
markable for  its  rock  reefs  and  obstructions, 
breaks  its  way  out  into  the  alluvial  bottoms  of 
the  lower  valley.  Whether,  as  some  hold,  this 
was  the  ancient  mouth  of  the  river,  and  all  the 
bottoms  from  this  point  to  the  Gulf  —  eight  hun- 
dred miles  —  have  been  created  out  of  sediment 
brought  down  in  millions  of  years  from  the  hill 
country  above ;  whether  the  land  from  here  down 
has  been  made  dry  by  the  subsidence  of  the  sea 
or  the  upheaval  of  the  bottom ;  or  whether  the 
ancient  river  flowed  between  banks  all  the  way 
down  to  Baton  Kouge  and  has  merely  filled  up 
its  ancient  bed  with  silt  as  it  has  diminished  in 
size, — for  all  these  theories  have  been  put  for- 
ward and  defended,  —  it  is  certain  that  from  here 
down  the  river  flows  in  a  land  of  its  own  crea- 
tion, in  which  it  still  destroys  and  builds  up, 
makes  bars,  shifts  its  channel,  and  cuts  in  new 
directions,  not  as  freely  as  in  its  pristine  condi- 

41 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

tion,  but  far  more  freely  than  it  will  be  allowed 
to  do  when  the  engineers  have  completed  their 
work. 

From  Commerce  down,  the  bordering  hills  are 
about  forty  miles  apart,  constituting,  as  I  have 
said,  the  major  bed  of  the  river.  Through  this 
the  river  itself,  in  its  minor  bed,  winds  an  irreg- 
ular course.  From  the  west  side,  at  Commerce, 
it  crosses  by  a  long  and  crooked  diagonal  to  strike 
the  easterly  bluffs  at  Columbus,  Kentucky.  Fol- 
lowing them  with  more  or  less  regularity  as 
far  as  Memphis,  it  then  moves  in  an  opposite 
diagonal  back  to  the  west  side  at  Helena,  Arkan- 
sas. It  thus  has  left,  between  itself  and  Crowley's 
Ridge,  an  irregular  tract,  pointed  at  both  ends, 
forty  miles  wide  in  the  middle,  and  containing 
about  six  thousand  square  miles.  This  region  is 
known  generally  as  the  St.  Francis  basin.  In  it 
the  land  is  composed  of  layers  of  earthy  mould, 
sand,  and  silt  from  the  river.  At  the  riverside, 
where  there  have  been  no  recent  changes,  it 
stands  about  forty  feet  high  above  low  water. 
From  this  point  it  slopes  downward  and  back- 
ward about  seven  feet  in  the  first  mile,  and  after 

42 


CONTROLLING  THE  MAJOR  BED 

that  a  foot  to  the  mile,  to  the  bluffs,  or  rather  to 
the  St.  Francis  River,  which,  with  some  irregu- 
larity, follows  the  trend  of  the  bluffs.  The  drain- 
age of  the  swamp  is  through  this  back  river.  The 
greater  elevation  of  the  land  at  the  Mississippi 
side  is  due  to  the  fact  that  its  waters  are  heavily 
burdened  with  the  suspended  earth  of  which  these 
bottoms  are  built.  As  they  spill  over  in  flood  they 
lose  speed,  and  also  their  ability  to  carry  silt.  The 
greatest  burden  is  deposited  at  once,  and  the 
smaller  amount  farther  back.  The  stream  at  the 
back  has  a  very  gentle  slope  and  a  sluggish  cur- 
rent ;  and  as  the  Mississippi  has  a  greater  slope, 
the  St.  Francis,  which  in  its  upper  reaches  is  per- 
haps fifteen  to  eighteen  feet  below  the  larger 
stream,  flows  into  it  at  Helena. 

From  Helena  the  Mississippi  turns  easterly 
again,  and,  leaving  the  westerly  hills,  takes  an- 
other long,  diagonal  course  to  the  east  side,  which 
it  strikes  at  Vicksburg.  It  then  follows  that  side 
with  more  or  less  regularity  to  Baton  Rouge,  and 
there,  leaving  the  high  ground  for  the  last  time, 
passes  down  in  mid  valley  through  its  delta  to  the 
Gulf,  passing  no  more  land  which  is  above  its 

43 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

own  flood  level  Between  Memphis  and  Vicks- 
burg,  on  the  easterly  side,  it  leaves  a  second  tract 
slightly  larger  than  the  St.  Francis  basin,  but 
almost  identical  in  character,  known  as  the  Yazoo 
Delta,  because  of  the  stream  which  drains  it 
along  its  bluffs.  Below  Helena  on  the  west,  and 
above  the  Arkansas,  it  leaves  another,  which  is 
called  the  White  Kiver  swamp,  and  below  that 
on  the  same  side  the  Tensas,  and  below  that  the 
Atchafalaya.  The  Plaquemines  region  lies  along 
both  sides  toward  the  mouth  of  the  river. 

These  great  swamps  or  bottoms  of  the  Missis- 
sippi —  and  it  must  be  remembered  that  in  call- 
ing them  "  swamps "  I  am  referring  to  their 
natural  condition  and  not  to  their  present  estate 
—  have  had  an  influence  extremely  important 
upon  the  regime  and  the  navigability  of  this  sec- 
tion of  the  river. 

There  comes  to  the  Mississippi,  chiefly  from 
the  Missouri,  a  great  burden  of  suspended  earthy 
matter,  usually  very  finely  divided,  which  it  carries 
on  toward  the  sea.  This  amounts  in  a  single  year 
to  as  much  as  would  make  a  cube  of  land  a  mile 
square  and  three  hundred  feet  deep.  The  ability 

44 


CONTROLLING  THE  MAJOR  BED 

of  a  running  stream  to  carry  such  a  burden  de- 
pends upon  several  factors,  not  yet  entirely 
understood ;  but  chiefly  upon  velocity  and  depth, 
with  some  modification  due  to  the  shape  of  the 
river  bed.  The  Missouri,  being  a  very  swift  stream, 
carries  it  along  without  difficulty.  The  Missis- 
sippi, however,  has  a  much  more  gentle  slope, 
and  is  only  enabled  to  carry  it  by  its  greater  vol- 
ume and  depth.  In  the  course  of  almost  countless 
years,  during  which  a  fairly  constant  regime  has 
been  maintained,  it  has  extended  its  valley  into 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  gradually  altered  its  bed 
until  it  has  established,  from  the  rock  shelf  at 
Commerce  to  the  mouth  of  its  passes,  a  total 
length  and  slope  which  just  enable  it  to  carry 
this  burden,  approximately  all  of  it  at  average 
stages,  to  the  sea.  For  this  purpose  it  not  only 
winds  back  and  forth  across  its  major  bed,  as  I 
have  already  described  it,  but  in  addition  it  makes 
these  windings  very  crookedly,  continually  turn- 
ing to  and  fro,  sometimes  in  great  horseshoes,  so 
that  in  covering  six  hundred  miles  of  air-line  dis- 
tance it  flows  through  more  than  a  thousand 
miles  of  channel. 

45 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

Having  established  a  bed  which  suits  it  at 
average  stages,  it  is  in  its  natural  state  contin- 
ually modifying  this  to  accommodate  temporary 
stages.  Thus  at  low  water  it  deposits  silt,  filling 
up  its  bed  —  because  of  its  inability  to  carry  its 
burden — until  it  has  so  restricted  its  channel 
that  its  speed  is  quickened  to  a  point  at  which  it 
is  again  able  to  carry  its  load.  On  the  other  hand, 
as  high  water  approaches,  the  proportion  of  silt 
carried  by  the  increasing  waters  is  reduced  and 
the  speed  of  current  increased,  so  that  the  river, 
which  now  requires  temporarily  a  larger  bed,  is 
able  to  pick  up  and  carry  along  the  silt  which  it 
dropped  at  low  water.  Both  of  these  actions, 
however,  are  again  modified  by  another  feature ; 
as  the  river  rises  it  spreads  out  over  considerable 
areas  within  its  minor  bed  which  the  low-water 
flow  does  not  cover.  The  outline  of  its  main 
current  is  then  altered,  and  it  fills  in  with  silt  the 
deep  trench  constituting  the  channel,  in  certain 
broad  reaches  and  crossings,  and  modifies  its 
cross  section  to  a  considerable  extent.  As  the 
river  falls  again  and  finds  it  necessary  to  seek  its 
old  and  smaller  bed,  it  cuts  out  these  fillings  and 

46 


CONTROLLING  THE  MAJOR  BED 

carries  the  earth  in  them  on  to  some  more  con- 
venient place  of  deposit. 

It  does  not,  of  course,  always  happen  that  the 
silt  which  has  thus  heen  recently  deposited  is  the 
easiest  to  pick  up.  The  swiftest  water  is  always 
the  place  of  erosion,  the  slack  water  of  deposit. 
The  swift  water  in  the  river  ordinarily  follows  the 
outside  of  every  bend,  and  from  the  foot  of  each 
bend  crosses  over  through  a  "crossing"  to  the 
head  of  the  next.  In  a  bend,  therefore,  the  typi- 
cal cross  section  is  something  like  figure  a,  while 
in  a  crossing  it  is  like  figure  6,  and  in  the  next 
bend  below  like  c. 


a 

High  Water' 


Levee         Medium 

Channel 


V"X'Low  Water    -, 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

As  the  swiftest  water  is  next  the  bank,  it  is 
often  at  this  point  that  erosion  takes  place.  Some- 
times this  erosion  is  all  in  the  lower  part  of  the 
bank,  which  becomes  undermined,  so  that  the 
upper  part  topples  into  the  stream.  Sometimes 
the  whole  bank  is  water-soaked  by  a  long  period 
of  high  water  and  then  suddenly  exposed  and  left 
unstable  by  a  quick  fall  of  the  river  so  that  from 
its  own  weight  it  falls  in.  In  either  case  the  river 
there  becomes  burdened  with  extra  silt  —  often 
an  excessive  burden,  which  it  proceeds  to  drop  in 
the  next  crossing,  where,  as  the  current  becomes 
more  general  through  the  whole  breadth  of  the 
river,  there  is  no  part  with  speed  enough  to  carry 
the  burden.  This  work  continues  until  the  cross- 
ing is  so  blocked,  and  the  length  of  the  bend  so 
increased,  as  to  affect  the  slope  of  the  river  and 
check  its  ability  to  carry  burdens.  Often  it 
spreads,  by  the  deflection  of  the  current,  into  the 
next  bend.  In  this  way  a  caving  sometimes  moves 
like  a  wave  for  a  long  distance  down  the  valley, 
accompanied  by  a  similar  progress  of  foaming 
and  moving  bars. 

It  is  owing  to  these  characteristics  that  the 
48 


CONTROLLING  THE  MAJOR  BED 

great  swamps  have  had  much  of  their  influence. 
At  the  head  of  the  St.  Francis  region  the  Missis- 
sippi rises  in  time  of  greatest  floods  ahout  fifty- 
five  feet  above  the  low-water  stages,  which  puts 
it  about  ten  feet  higher  than  the  bank  along  the 
stream  side.  As  it  rises  it  first  fills  all  of  its  minor 
bed,  wiping  out  temporarily  the  channel,  and 
flowing  with  some  uniformity  in  the  enlarged 
trough,  readjusting  bottom  slopes  and  curves.  As 
it  rises  higher  it  soon  spills  over  at  the  head  of 
the  swamp.  At  once  several  things  take  place. 
The  rise  is  checked  temporarily  until  the  region 
back  of  the  bank  is  filled.  The  checking  of  the 
advance  of  a  rise  checks  the  current,  not  only  in 
the  part  which  overflows,  but  in  the  part  which 
remains  in  the  minor  bed.  That  outside  the  minor 
bed  deposits  considerable  matter  along  the  river 
bank,  and  then,  depositing  less  as  it  moves,  fills 
up  the  back  lands  and  flows  slowly  into  the  St. 
Francis  Biver  and  sluggishly  onward  toward  the 
mouth  at  Helena.  The  wave  in  the  river  itself 
passes  slowly  on,  overflowing  more  and  more  as 
the  rise  continues  to  come,  till  it  has  filled  the 
swamp,  when  it  passes  on  down  the  river.  In  this 

49 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

checking  of  the  advance  a  considerable  filling 
takes  place  in  the  minor  bed,  and  this  filling  is 
chiefly  in  the  part  opposite  the  middle  or  widest 
part  of  the  swamp.  As  the  river  falls  again  this 
filling  forms  something  of  a  dam,  through  which 
it  is  necessary  for  the  lower  river  to  cut  a  new 
way.  This  new  way  does  not  always  follow,  in  a 
natural  state,  the  former  way,  and  as  a  result 
there  develops  a  region  of  uncertain  channels  in 
which  the  banks,  cutting  out  to  new  shapes  to 
accommodate  the  newly  shaped  low-water  cur- 
rents, are  gradually  driven  wide  apart,  leaving 
such  a  broad  and  shallow  stream,  full  of  bars  and 
shoals,  as  the  notorious  Plum  Point  region  abreast 
the  centre  of  the  St.  Francis  swamp,  or  the  Stack 
Island  reach  abreast  the  middle  of  the  Yazoo. 

Of  course,  in  a  natural  state,  as  the  river  spills 
over  the  swamp,  the  crest  is  lowered,  and  the  flow 
delayed.  Although  practically  the  same  amount 
of  water  which  passes  Cairo  passes  Helena,  if  the 
flood  is  a  short  one  the  crest  in  the  open  river 
may  pass  Helena  before  the  flood  from  the  swamp 
arrives  there;  but  if  it  is  a  long,  slow  flood,  the 
swamp  water  may  arrive  in  time  to  add  a  new 

50 


CONTROLLING  THE  MAJOR  BED 

crisis  at  that  point.  In  the  course  of  this  manoeu- 
vre a  flood  which  stood  55  feet  on  the  gauge  at 
Cairo  might  be  spread  out  in  the  St.  Francis  so 
that  but  33  feet  would  be  registered  at  Memphis ; 
but  Helena  would  see  the  flood  there  mount  to  48 
or  even  to  nearly  50  feet.  Vicksburg,  again,  where 
the  Yazoo  emptied,  would  also  see  nearly  50  feet, 
and  at  Natchez,  where  another  large  volume  is 
concentrated,  there  would  be  almost  as  much. 

Two  hundred  years  ago,  when  the  settlement 
of  the  Mississippi  Valley  began  at  New  Orleans, 
the  first  dwellings  were  upon  a  bit  of  elevated 
ground  which  lay  above  all  but  the  highest  floods. 
In  exceptional  years,  however,  this  sixteen-foot 
elevation  was  inundated;  and  to  prevent  trouble 
the  inhabitants  threw  up  low  earthen  ramparts  to 
keep  out  the  flood ;  these  being  known  as  levees, 
or  raised  places.  As  the  fertility  of  the  valley  was 
tested  and  the  river-bottom  lands  proved  to  be 
fabulously  rich  for  sugar  and  rice,  these  walls  were 
extended  by  individual  planters  up  and  down 
both  banks  of  the  river.  In  the  lower  lands  they 
were  of  considerable  height,  sometimes  ten  or 
twelve  feet ;  usually  of  steep  slope  and  not  strong, 

51 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

but  sufficient  to  keep  out  ordinary  floods.  They 
were  thrown  up  by  slave  labor,  often  with  logs 
and  other  foreign  matter  added  to  make  filling 
easy,  and  were  often  broken  —  a  break  being 
called  a  "crevasse."  They  were  sometimes  over- 
flowed. Later  these  walls  were  farther  extended 
under  local  and  state  taxation,  and  about  fifty 
years  ago  the  federal  government  gave  all  the 
local  overflowed  lands  remaining  in  public  domain 
to  the  several  states  to  be  sold  to  create  a  fund  for 
levee  building  and  drainage.  Under  this  act,  by 
1860  there  was  a  very  considerable  wall  all  the 
way  up  to  the  mouth  of  Red  River,  and,  after  a 
short  gap  there,  up  the  Arkansas  side  to  Napo- 
leon, at  the  mouth  of  Arkansas  River.  On  the 
other  side  the  Yazoo  Valley  was  partly  protected, 
and  there  were  isolated  levees  below.  The  war 
made  a  long  intermission  in  levee  construction 
and  repair.  Before  it  was  over  marauding  troops, 
cannon  balls,  and  most  of  all  unchecked  floods, 
had  made  great  breaches  in  the  line.  Long  gaps 
occurred  in  many  places.  From  Cairo  to  the  sea 
there  were  only  isolated  places,  such  as  the  city 
of  New  Orleans,  which  were  safely  protected. 

52 


CONTROLLING  THE  MAJOR  BED 

The  whole  swamp  country  was  subject  to  every 
out-of-banks  flood.  And  so  prostrate  was  the 
country  that  as  late  as  1880  there  was  still  to  be 
seen  the  spectacle  of  the  Mississippi  forty  miles 
wide,  filling  all  of  its  major  bed,  sweeping  on 
without  other  obstruction  than  cities  and  forests, 
from  Cairo  to  the  Gulf.  By  that  time,  however, 
systematic  work  on  the  development  of  the  levee 
lines  had  been  carried  well  forward,  and  these 
progressed  steadily,  so  that  by  1907  for  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  the  valley  a  record-breaking 
flood,  passing  fifty  feet  at  Cairo,  went  from  there 
down  the  whole  length  of  the  channel  without 
overtopping  or  breaking  a  single  levee  line,  except 
a  small  and  ancient  earthwork  a  long  distance 
below  New  Orleans.  The  St.  Francis,  the  Yazoo, 
the  White,  the  Atchafalaya,  and  the  Pontchar- 
train  basins  all  lay  safe  behind  their  levees,  un- 
injured by  the  flow. 

These  levees,  as  will  be  shown  when  the  man- 
ner of  construction  is  described,  are  nothing  more 
than  earthen  ramparts,  varying  in  height  from 
three  or  four  feet  in  the  lower  reaches,  to  twenty- 
five  or  even  thirty  at  exposed  places;  sometimes 

53 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

five  feet,  sometimes  more  than  two  hundred  in 
thickness.  In  general  they  follow  the  contour  of 
the  minor  bed,  at  some  little  distance  back  from 
the  stream,  so  as  to  protect  as  much  as  possible  of 
the  land  in  the  swamp  areas  from  overflow.  But 
it  has  not  been  possible,  with  the  limited  funds 
at  hand  and  with  the  dangers  of  bank  erosion, 
to  follow  around  the  bends,  or  to  keep  in  many 
pkces  between  the  river  and  some  inland  lake 
or  slough.  Accordingly  much  land  is  left  out- 
side of  them,  and  more  is  abandoned  from  year 
to  year  as  the  river  shifts  its  course.  Nevertheless 
the  levees  do  afford  protection  to  the  land  behind 
them  in  such  degree  that  the  products  raised 
on  the  land  in  any  average  year  return  many 
fold  the  entire  cost  of  the  system  for  the  past 
two  hundred  years. 

During  the  erection  of  these  walls  many  nota- 
ble changes  have  been  made  in  the  flood  regime 
of  the  river  and  many  in  its  availability  for  navi- 
gation. Though  the  full  effect  of  these  is  not  yet 
felt,  and  there  will  be  slight  further  modification 
before  the  final  completion  of  a  major  bed  ex- 
actly coinciding  with  the  minor  bed,  it  is  possible 

54 


BEHIND  A  LEVEE 


LEVEE  PROTECTION  IN  FLOOD-TIME 


CONTROLLING  THE  MAJOR  BED 

now  to  describe  the  lower  river  as  it  will  exist  for 
centuries  to  come  with  some  degree  of  accuracy. 
This  river  now  flows  in  a  major  bed  so  restricted 
that  at  least  twenty-five  thousand  square  miles  of 
its  former  area  has  been  excluded  from  it.  As  a 
result,  when  a  flood  passes  Cairo  and  spills  over 
the  banks,  it  comes  at  once  to  the  earthen  wall 
of  the  St.  Francis  levee  system,  which  prevents  its 
retreat  over  the  swamp  to  the  St.  Francis  Eiver. 
There  is,  therefore,  but  a  slight  spilling,  and  the 
crest  of  the  flood  continues  to  rise  and  pass  swiftly 
down  the  Mississippi  in  about  the  same  shape  as 
it  passes  Cairo.  At  Plum  Point  there  is  no  shoal- 
ing and  slacking,  but  instead  a  constant  current 
that  enables  the  engineers  to  maintain  a  deep 
channel  through  the  intricate  bars.  At  Memphis, 
instead  of  33  feet  as  formerly,  a  flood  rises  35, 
38,  and  at  last  even  41  feet,  with  an  assurance 
that  some  day  it  will  go  to  43,  but  an  accompany- 
ing assurance  that  all  that  water  will  be  within 
the  banks  of  the  river.  At  Helena  there  has  been 
but  a  slight  change,  the  concentration  of  the  St. 
Francis  and  Yazoo  floods  raising  the  flood  level 
on  the  gauge  to  about  54  feet.  At  Vicksburg  it 

55 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

has  gone,  with  the  closing  of  White  Kiver,  to 
53  feet,  and  from  there  down  there  has  been 
no  greater  change.  At  New  Orleans  16  feet  has 
given  place  to  18  and  this  again  to  22,  and  now 
the  levee  front  of  the  city  has  been  made  safe  to 
withstand  a  flood  of  more  than  24  feet,  beyond 
which  it  is  not  probable  that  even  with  all  the 
tributaries  in  flood  at  once  the  river  can  come. 
Thus  confined  between  banks,  the  flood  waters 
flow  with  a  steeper  slope  and  greater  speed; 
but  being  amply  accommodated  in  the  artificial 
major  bed,  they  do  little  damage,  and  the  crest 
moves  to  the  sea  more  quickly  than  under  natural 
conditions.  It  is  noteworthy  that  so  accurate  is 
engineering  knowledge  of  this  part  of  the  river, 
that  the  height  to  which  a  certain  record  flood 
would  rise  on  the  Memphis  gauge  when  the  St. 
Francis  was  closed  was  predicted  definitely  by  the 
engineers  before  beginning  the  levee  building  op- 
posite the  city ;  and  when  the  last  gap  had  been 
closed  and  a  flood  of  the  foreseen  magnitude 
passed  Cairo,  it  rose  at  Memphis  to  within  one 
tenth  of  a  foot  of  the  predicted  height,  and  only 
failed  to  reach  it  exactly  because  of  a  crevasse 

56 


CONTROLLING  THE  MAJOR  BED 

at  Hollybush  when  the  crest  was  approaching  the 
city. 

The  building  of  levees  has  not  been  altogether 
unopposed  by  the  people  of  the  valley.  As  the 
closing  of  the  successive  swamps  has  limited  the 
major  bed  and  sent  the  crests  of  the  confined 
floods  higher,  and  as  levees  have  had  to  be  in- 

O  ' 

creased  to  meet  them,  the  theory  has  been  ad- 
vanced, and  has  been  quite  widely  accepted,  that 
the  river  builds  up  its  bed  in  proportion  as  the 
walls  are  raised,  and  that  eventually  we  will  be 
confronted  by  massive  walls  indefinitely  high,  be- 
tween which  will  flow  an  elevated  stream  on  a  bed 
higher  than  the  surrounding  country.  This  is,  of 
course,  an  absurdity.  The  mouth  of  the  Missis- 
sippi at  the  Gulf  is  at  a  fixed  level,  and  the  river 
banks  between  which  it  flows  extend  with  almost 
immeasurable  slowness.  The  head  of  the  lower 
river  at  Commerce  is  also  at  a  fixed  level,  estab- 
lished by  the  rock  rim  there.  Between  these  points 
the  Mississippi  is  of  a  definite  length,  and  that 
length,  which  it  has  established  for  itself  in  an 
age-long  wandering,  is  just  sufficient  to  maintain 
the  necessary  slope  to  maintain  in  turn  the  aver- 

57 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

age  stability  of  the  banks  of  the  stream  with  the 
amount  of  water  and  consequent  current  there  is 
to  be  discharged.  These  conditions  cannot  be  al- 
tered. If  the  river  is  shortened  by  a  cut-off,  its  in- 
creased current  eats  into  the  adjacent  bends  and 
lengthens  itself  till  it  has  again  established  its 
equilibrium.  Any  raising  of  the  bed  of  this  stream 
in  any  locality  would  at  once  cause  a  very  decided 
change  in  its  regime.  The  current  above  that  point 
would  be  checked  by  loss  of  slope,  and  the  current 
below  would  be  increased  and  the  whole  river 
would  be  altered.  If  this  continued  for  any  length 
of  time,  we  should  have  an  absurdity  in  a  river 
flowing  along  a  level  bed  below  Cairo  for  an  inde- 
finite distance  and  at  last  plunging  over  a  preci- 
pice of  mud  into  the  Gulf.  As  the  bed  increased 
in  height  we  would  have  the  bottom  of  the  river 
above  the  land  and  would  have  to  use  elevators  to 
get  up  to  low-water  level.  There  is  not  the  slight- 
est evidence  on  which  to  base  any  supposition 
that  any  such  raising  of  the  bed  takes  place.  The 
increase  of  the  levees  from  year  to  year  is  due,  as 
we  have  shown,  to  the  contraction  of  the  major 
bed ;  and  the  only  known  action  caused  by  levees 

58 


CONTROLLING  THE   MAJOR  BED 

in  the  channel  and  minor  bed  is  in  the  direction 
of  the  elimination  of  the  natural  dam  and  pool 
regime  and  the  establishment  of  a  more  even 
slope  and  a  more  regular  volume. 


CHAPTER  IV 

LEVEE  BUILDING    AND  MAINTENANCE 

THE  levees  of  the  Mississippi  —  and  this  ap- 
plies to  the  whole  system  and  not  alone  to 
the  lower  river  —  are  nothing  but  earthen  ram- 
parts, built  of  the  material  to  be  found  at  hand, 
and  designed  according  to  the  nature  of  this 
material  and  of  the  attack  which  is  to  be  made 
upon  them.  There  are  along  the  bank  three 
principal  kinds  of  material  from  which  to  build, 
—  clay,  loam,  and  sand.  Of  these,  clay  is  the  best. 
Sand  and  loam  have  each  their  bad  and  their  good 
points.  Loam  when  very  wet  is  apt  to  slump  away 
entirely.  Sand,  on  the  other  hand,  is  extremely 
unstable.  Experience  has  demonstrated  that  a 
levee,  to  have  permanent  wearing  ability,  should 
have  an  eight-foot  crown  and  slope  away,  in  clay 
or  loam,  about  one  foot  vertical  for  every  three 
horizontal.  If  the  levee  exceeds  ten  feet  in  height, 
it  is  reinforced  on  the  land  side  by  a  bench  or 
banquette  about  eight  or  ten  feet  wide,  sloping 

60 


LEVEE  BUILDING 

away  one  on  three  to  one  on  five,  the  banquette 
being  from  four  to  eight  feet  below  the  level  of 
the  crown.  Banquettes  are  occasionally  as  wide 
as  twenty  feet.  Levees  built  of  sand  are  sometimes 
sloped  on  both  sides  one  on  five,  this  dimension 
being  used  in  the  Lake  Bolivar  levee  at  the  head 
of  the  Yazoo  system,  a  wall  twenty-five  feet  high, 
having  a  base  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty 
feet  wide. 

When  such  a  levee  is  to  be  built,  the  line  which 
it  is  to  follow  is  first  selected  as  a  compromise 
between  the  ideal  and  the  various  rival  interests 
at  stake.  An  ideal  line  would  exactly  follow  and 
closely  neighbor  the  top  of  the  lower  bank.  This 
is  prohibited  by  the  unstable  nature  of  this  bank 
except  where  revetment  (to  be  later  described) 
has  been  applied.  Such  a  line  would  also  be 
very  long,  and  consequently  exceedingly  costly. 
It  must  be  set  back.  This  setting  back  at  once 
brings  the  interests  of  the  landowners  into  play, 
to  have  selected  a  line  which  will  protect  as 
much  land  as  possible.  The  shaping  of  the  cur- 
rent, the  availability  of  material,  and  the  security 
of  the  foundation  must  all  be  then  considered.  In 

61 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

the  end  a  line  is  drawn,  profiles  made,  the  quan- 
tity of  excavation  and  filling  estimated  with  a 
near  approach  to  exactness,  and  contracts  are  let, 
the  usual  price  being  somewhere  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  fourteen  cents  a  cubic  yard  for  the 
completed  levee. 

The  contractor,  coming  upon  the  ground  with 
his  equipment  of  excavators,  teams,  and  men,  first 
clears  the  land  to  be  covered  by  the  levee,  and 
that  from  which  he  is  to  excavate.  Several  rigid 
conditions  bind  him  in  this.  Under  his  contracts 
he  must  not  allow  in  the  wall  any  stump,  stick, 
log,  chunk,  bush,  or  other  foreign  material ;  for 
such  a  thing,  decaying,  may  leave  a  hole  which 
will  cause  a  crevasse.  If  he  leaves  such  a  thing, 
he  forfeits  not  only  a  heavy  bond,  but  all  his 
compensation  as  well.  He  must  get  his  earth  all 
from  the  river  side  of  the  levee,  and  must  not 
disturb  that  for  a  considerable  distance  —  leaving 
a  berm  not  less  than  forty  feet  wide  before  the 
levee.  The  borrow  pit  which  he  makes  must  not 
be  deeper  than  four  feet  on  the  levee  side.  Hav- 
ing finished  clearing,  he  excavates  down  the  mid- 
dle of  the  strip  a  "  muck  ditch,"  often  ten  feet 

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LEVEE  BUILDING 

deep  by  twelve  wide  for  a  large  levee,  and  intended 
as  a  bond  between  the  levee  and  the  wall.  In  some 
districts  the  earth  which  goes  into  this  is  pud- 
dled, in  others  it  is  merely  packed.  Then  with 
scrapers  and  teams,  or  with  men  and  barrows,  or, 
as  in  some  lower  districts,  with  excavators  and 
conveyors,  he  begins  the  construction.  For  this 
work  barrows  and  hand  labor  are  preferred  and 
often  stipulated,  because  they  give  a  more  solid 
and  uniform  structure.  The  levee  is  built  some- 
what wider  than  it  is  to  stand,  and  larger  in  all 
proportions,  first  to  allow  for  settling,  second  be- 
cause it  must  finally  be  trimmed  to  dimension.  No 
earth  is  allowed  to  be  added  on  the  outside  to  make 
up  for  a  lack  of  dimension,  as  such  an  addition 
would  slump  away  under  flood  pressure.  The 
whole  thing  must  be  homogeneous.  If  the  levee 
is  being  constructed  with  scrapers  and  mules,  the 
animals  are  sent  in  a  drove  up  and  down  the  line 
at  frequent  intervals,  to  pack  the  earth.  When 
the  whole  wall  is  completed  and  has  been  approved 
by  the  inspectors,  it  is  trimmed  to  its  larger,  un- 
shrunk  dimensions,  and  is  then  allowed  to  settle 
slowly  into  size.  Its  surface  is  sodded  with  Ber- 

63 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

muda  grass,  -which  gives  a  good  turf,  offering 
excellent  protection  against  wind  and  rain  erosion, 
and  it  is  ready  for  use.  Thereafter  it  is  kept 
mowed,  to  prevent  weeds  from  injuring  it ;  it  is 
protected  against  grazing  animals,  and  though 
used  as  a  footpath  is  forbidden  ground  to  wheeled 
vehicles.  If  it  is  built  of  clay,  it  may  continue  to 
shrink  beyond  anticipation,  and  require  that  a 
wholly  new- layer  be  built  up  from  the  back,  be- 
ginning at  the  base  with  a  wide  foundation  and 
sloping  up  to  and  over  the  crest. 

This  levee  work  is  done  by  the  federal  and 
state  governments  in  partnership.  Prior  to  1882 
the  funds  all  came  out  of  the  taxes  or  the  pro- 
ceeds of  swamp  land  sales.  In  that  year  the 
Mississippi  Eiver  Commission,  an  organization 
within  the  War  Department  created  for  the  pur- 
pose of  improving  the  Mississippi,  took  up  levee 
building  as  one  feature  of  the  improvement  of 
navigation,  and,  except  when  positively  forbidden 
by  Congress,  has  continued  that  work  ever  since, 
spending  nearly  $1,000,000  a  year  on  it.  The 
several  states  have  created  levee  districts  in  the 
swamp  areas,  each  of  which  has  a  regular  official 

64 


LEVEE  BUILDING 

organization.  These  districts  are  enabled  to  issue 
bonds  or  certificates  of  indebtedness  with  which 
to  pay  for  the  work,  and  to  redeem  these  have  a 
sinking  fund  made  up  of  taxes.  These  taxes  in 
some  districts  are  on  every  acre  of  protected 
land,  in  others  on  produce  —  fifty  cents  on  every 
bale  of  cotton,  and  in  proportion  on  all  other 
material  grown  on  land  which  the  levee  has  re- 
claimed. In  addition,  they  are  aided  by  a  general 
state  tax.  Of  the  $60,000,000  spent  on  the  lower 
river  levees  since  the  Civil  War,  two  thirds  have 
been  paid  by  the  levee  districts  and  the  states  at 
large. 

Over  all  this  work  the  Mississippi  Kiver  Com- 
mission exercises  supervision.  In  dividing  its 
funds  among  the  several  districts  according  to 
their  needs,  it  sometimes  gives  them  the  money 
for  work,  sometimes  does  the  work  itself.  It  has 
established  a  series  of  bench  marks,  from  which 
it  has  based  a  so-called  "  M.  K.  C."  grade,  to 
which  completed  levees  must  conform,  and  this 
grade  has  been  raised  from  time  to  time  as  the 
height  of  flood  locally  has  been  raised  by  the 
closing  of  the  swamps.  It  has  been  the  intention 

65 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

to  keep  this  grade  three  feet  above  the  highest 
known  high-water  level.  Of  course  the  levees 
have  never  entirely  reached  this  grade  at  any 
time,  as  it  has  been  necessary  to  build  the  most 
important  lines,  and  to  protect  the  whole  district 
through  the  years  of  lesser  floods  rather  than 
protect  a  small  part  of  it  from  the  occasional 
record-makers.  Consequently  it  has  been  the  pol- 
icy of  the  commission  to  allow  the  states  to  go 
forward  with  the  building  of  these  lesser  levees, 
and  to  spend  most  of  its  own  resources  follow- 
ing this  up  by  adding  new  backs  and  crowns 
to  bring  state  levees  up  to  "M.  R.  C."  grade. 
At  present  this  grade  is  actually  attained  in  only 
a  fair  proportion  of  the  lines ;  but  the  time  is 
fast  approaching  when  the  whole  complete  levee 
will  be  brought  up  to  standard. 

Levee  lines  protect  the  lands  back  of  them  only 
so  long  as  they  stand  intact.  The  moment  a  levee 
is  overtopped  or  broken  through,  the  break  so 
made  is  quickly  widened  by  the  head  of  water 
against  it,  and  a  torrent  flows  through,  inundating 
the  land  often  for  several  hundred  square  miles, 
to  a  greater  or  less  depth.  Such  a  break  is  called 

66 


LEVEE  BUILDING 

a  crevasse.  In  time  of  flood  the  chief  labor  of  the 
levee  engineer  is  watching  the  weak  points  of  his 
levee  to  guard  against  such  a  catastrophe,  and 
some  of  the  most  exciting  romance  in  the  history 
of  American  engineering  has  been  written  in  the 
actual  reports  of  their  doings. 

A  crevasse  may  be  caused  by  many  things. 
A  muskrat  or  woodchuck,  or  even  a  crawfish, 
burrowing  through  the  earth,  may  leave  a  hole 
through  which  the  water  may  flow  and  start  a 
leak.  An  old  tree  trunk  left  in  the  wall,  or  in 
the  bank  beneath  it,  may  leave  a  cavity  which 
fills  with  seepage  water  and  causes  a  collapse.  An 
underground  passage,  unsuspected,  may  be  forced 
open  suddenly  by  the  head  —  often  ten  or  twelve 
feet  —  of  the  water  standing  against  the  levee, 
and  may  boil  up  as  a  miniature  geyser  ten  or  a 
hundred  feet  back  behind  the  wall.  Sometimes 
a  flood  rises  higher  than  the  wall  and  overtops 
it.  Sometimes,  when  the  water  is  near  the  top,  a 
cross  wind  makes  waves  which  erode  the  upper 
layers  and  cause  a  crevasse.  Sometimes,  after  a 
long  flood,  the  water-soaked  earth  loses  its  sta- 
bility and  slumps  flat  away,  —  or  more  often  a 

67 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

part  of  the  back  wall  caves  away,  preliminary, 
unless  it  is  checked,  to  a  total  collapse.  Against 
all  of  these  things  the  engineer  is  on  watch  night 
and  day  during  high  water.  Up  and  down  the 
levee  go  the  guards  —  often  armed  lest  planters 
from  the  one  bank  may  attempt  to  cut  the  levee 
opposite  for  their  own  greater  safety.  At  strate- 
gic points,  usually  on  the  railway — for  the  rail- 
road is  as  interested  as  the  farmer  in  keeping  the 
flood  away  from  its  right  of  way  —  the  engineer 
masses  carloads  of  lumber,  sometimes  of  earth, 
and  always  of  sacks.  He  has  his  men  ready  at 
call.  The  guards,  pacing  up  and  down,  report  at 
short  intervals,  and  if  one  has  found  the  seepage 
water  in  the  ditch  back  of  the  levee  increasing 
alarmingly,  he  reports  accordingly.  If  a  stream  of 
clear  water  is  found  coming  through,  he  gives  an 
alarm  and  measures  are  taken  to  stop  it.  Such  a 
stream,  however,  is  not  as  dangerous  as  a  muddy 
stream ;  for  clear  water  is  always  slow  seepage, 
while  muddy  water  either  comes  through  a  hole 
unobstructed  or  else  is  full  of  eroded  material 
from  the  levee.  In  either  case  the  engineer  may 
throw  earth  on  the  river  side  of  the  levee,  hoping 

68 


LEVEE  BUILDING 

it  will  be  carried  into  the  hole,  —  a  measure 
seldom  used,  —  or  he  may,  and  usually  does,  loop 
around  the  leak  with  sand-bags  and  earth,  form- 
ing an  inclosure  in  which  the  water  gathers  till 
it  has  head  enough  to  check  the  flow. 

If  a  sand  boil  occurs,  it  is  either  similarly 
looped  or  is  beaten  down  with  brush  and  masses 
of  earth.  The  greatest  danger,  however,  is  from 
wave  erosion  along  the  top.  For  this  purpose  the 
engineer  has  carloads  of  boards  and  sacks,  with 
which,  on  the  exposed  line,  he  hastily  constructs 
a  batter-wall,  either  as  a  small  breakwater  to 
destroy  the  force  of  the  waves,  or  as  a  capping 
of  sand-bags  to  prevent  erosion.  This  is  a  matter 
most  difficult  of  accomplishment.  The  destructive 
floods  come  ordinarily  in  February  and  March, 
when  the  water  is  extremely  cold,  and  the  men 
setting  the  wall  or  laying  the  sacks  must  often 
be  knee  or  even  waist  deep  in  it  for  long  periods. 
If  sacks  are  being  used,  it  is  fairly  certain  that 
the  land  immediately  behind  the  levee  will  be 
soggy  from  the  same  influences  which  have  caused 
the  flood,  and  the  engineer  must  go  some  dis- 
tance to  fill  his  sacks,  which  must  then  be  borne 

69 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

on  men's  shoulders  to  the  place  where  they  are 
needed.  If,  as  sometimes  happens,  there  is  danger 
of  overtopping,  the  earth  must  often  be  taken 
from  the  back  of  the  levee  itself,  —  a  dangerous 
expedient,  —  and  piled  hastily  in  sacks  on  top. 
By  this  means  the  Hollybush  levee  of  the  St. 
Francis  was  saved  in  1907,  though  the  river  over- 
topped it  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile. 

One  of  the  most  dangerous  of  all  accidents  is 
the  slumping  away  of  part  of  the  back  earth.  The 
instinctive  action  of  the  green  engineer  is  to  heap 
more  in  the  place  it  came  from ;  this,  however,  is 
to  court  destruction,  as  the  already  water-soaked 
and  weakened  levee  will  ill  support  the  additional 
burden.  The  safer  and  better  way  is  to  build, 
back  of  it,  a  well-braced  wooden  wall  set  against 
posts,  and  against  this  heap  up  earth,  gradually 
bringing  it  to  the  foot  and  so  to  the  slope  of  the 
levee,  the  whole  being  braced  against  the  wooden 
wall.  If  this  cannot  be  done,  brush  is  thrown  into 
the  gap,  and  over  this  earth,  preferably  in  sacks, 
is  piled,  the  brush  distributing  the  burden  and 
preventing  further  slip. 

At  times  all  these  measures  and  the  most  heroic 
70 


LEVEE  BUILDING 

efforts  of  the  engineer  fail  in  the  purpose,  and 
a  crevasse  occurs.  In  such  a  case  two  principal 
lines  of  action  are  open  to  the  engineer.  He  may 
attempt  to  close  the  crevasse,  or  he  may  devote 
himself  to  saving  as  much  as  possible  of  the  levee 
wall  from  being  torn  away.  If  the  levee  is  a  low 
one,  —  and  in  Louisiana,  in  the  neighborhood  of 
New  Orleans  and  below  that  city,  this  is  most 
apt  to  be  true, — there  is  often  hope  of  a  success- 
ful battle  with  the  flood.  But  if  the  levee  be  a 
high  one,  or  the  flood  standing  high  against  it, 
such  measures  are  most  often  futile,  and  the  best 
work  is  that  which  stops  the  widening  of  the 
gap  at  the  earliest  moment. 

In  this  latter  case  the  engineer  hurries  to  the 
scene  large  gangs  of  men,  often  contributed  freely 
and  gladly  by  the  neighboring  plantation  owners, 
and  carloads  or  boatloads  of  wooden  scantling 
and  timbers,  together  with  bags  and  barges  of 
sand  from  the  nearest  available  source;  for  it 
must  be  remembered  that  when  a  crevasse  has 
occurred,  there  is  no  longer  earth  to  be  obtained 
at  the  back  of  the  levee,  the  inrushing  waters 
having  drowned  out  the  whole  neighborhood. 

71 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

With  a  head  of  six  to  ten  feet  through  the  gap, 
the  roar  of  the  rushing  waters  can  be  heard  for  a 
long  distance,  and  the  end  of  the  levee  tears  away 
in  masses,  falling  with  an  increasing  roar  into  the 
current.  To  attempt  to  erect  any  false  work  what- 
ever during  this  first  stage  would  be  futile ;  but 
as  soon  as  the  first  sign  of  slackening  appears 
the  engineer  begins  two  moves,  one  to  revet  the 
ends  of  the  levee  themselves,  the  other  to  erect 
flanking  or  protecting  dikes  to  prevent  the  cur- 
rent striking  against  the  end.  The  dikes  are 
erected  some  distance  back  from  the  end  of  the 
levee  on  the  outer  side.  Timbers,  usually  four 
inches  square,  are  driven  as  piling,  usually  by 
hand  sledges,  in  four  or  more  parallel  rows,  close 
together,  and  braced  diagonally  with  scantling. 
These  piling  are  connected  into  bents,  and  the 
successive  bents  are  strongly  braced  to  each  other 
and  equipped  with  a  runway  on  or  near  the  top. 
Often  the  current  undermines  and  sweeps  away 
this  frail  structure,  but  if  it  holds  until  completed 
the  workmen  then  begin  filling  it  with  sacks  of 
sand.  The  dike  projects  out  perhaps  a  hundred 
feet,  perhaps  more  or  less,  —  sufficient,  at  any 

72 


LEVEE  BUILDING 

rate,  to  provide  a  shield  for  the  levee  end  from  the 
current  sweeping  along  the  side.  The  sacks  of  sand 
are  carried  out  on  the  runway  and  dropped  by 
skilled  men,  in  courses,  the  bottom  one  reaching 
out  several  rows  each  side  of  the  dike  to  prevent 
undermining.  Then  as  each  course  is  added,  the 
face  of  the  wall  opposed  to  the  current  is  kept 
flush,  but  the  back  face  is  sloped  in,  so  as  to  pro- 
vide a  gradual  spillway  on  that  side  and  furnish 
more  adequate  bracing.  If  such  a  wall  holds,  the 
next  move  is  to  revet  the  ends  of  the  levee  them- 
selves. This  is  done  by  covering  them  with  sacks 
of  sand,  sometimes  hurled  into  the  breach,  some- 
times lowered  from  ropes  so  as  to  lie  exactly  in 
place.  The  endeavor  is  to  cover  the  exposed  part 
entirely,  to  prevent  further  caving. 

When  both  these  tasks  have  been  accomplished, 
there  remains  nothing  for  the  engineer  to  do  but 
to  await  low  water  and  a  time  for  repairs.  The 
flood  pouring  through  the  crevasse  will  jeopardize 
no  person,  because  it  flows  over  so  large  a  terri- 
tory that  it  rises  slowly.  But  it  may  cause  much 
damage  to  land.  An  unrestricted  rise  of  the  river 
generally  deposits  more  or  less  silt  over  the  land 

73 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

on  which  it  stands ;  but  a  rush  of  swift  water 
through  a  crevasse  carries  with  it  considerable 
sand,  with  which  it  may  cover  formerly  profitable 
land  to  its  entire  destruction.  Otherwise  it  causes 
no  damage  except  as  it  is  followed  by  malaria  and 
as  it  delays  the  spring  planting.  A  crevasse  in 
summer  destroys  the  whole  season's  crop,  but 
breaks  at  that  season  are  extremely  rare.  As  the 
water  outside  the  crevasse  subsides,  that  which 
has  passed  in  gradually  finds  its  way  back  to  the 
drainage  stream  of  the  inundated  "  swamp."  If  it 
is  near  cropping  time,  and  quick  drainage  is  es- 
pecially desirable,  as  soon  as  the  flood  has  sub- 
sided enough  to  make  operations  prospectively 
successful  the  engineer  begins  extending  his  old 
dikes  or  building  new  ones  across  the  gap,  and 
if  these  stand  he  fills  them  with  sacks,  and  thus 
makes  a  temporary  dam  and  allows  the  land  to 
dry. 

In  the  lower  part,  where  gaps  have  been  suc- 
cessfully closed,  this  same  method  is  followed.  The 
dikes,  of  timber  bents,  are  extended  from  both 
sides  in  an  arch,  as  wide  often  as  the  batture  in 
front  of  the  levee  will  allow,  until  they  meet  in 

74 


LEVEE  BUILDING 

the  centre,  and  gain  a  new  stability  from  their 
union.  They  are  then  rapidly  sacked  up.  The 
danger  point  in  this  work  is  at  the  centre,  the 
gradual  closing  of  the  arch  sometimes  forcing  the 
water  to  scour  so  deeply  at  the  cap  that  the  bents 
there  cannot  be  made  stable.  This  method  was 
followed  in  one  of  the  most  famous  bits  of  work 
ever  seen  on  the  river,  the  closing  of  the  Conrad 
crevasse.  But  in  a  similar  attempt,  in  1903,  to 
close  the  Hymelia  crevasse  near  New  Orleans, 
when  the  sugar  lands  were  being  devastated,  it 
failed  because  at  the  critical  moment  a  barge 
loaded  with  lumber  slipped  its  lines  and  bumped 
too  heavily  against  the  cap  of  the  arch,  carrying 
away  the  whole  structure. 

The  levee  system  of  the  Lower  Mississippi  is 
now  fairly  complete  as  far  as  regards  the  protec- 
tion of  the  alluvial  lands,  though  there  are  hun- 
dreds of  miles  yet  to  be  brought  up  to  the  latest, 
and  final,  Mississippi  River  Commission  Grade. 
As  it  stands,  the  levee  of  1400  miles  represents 
an  investment  of  $55,000,000.  To  complete  it  to 
grade  on  its  present  lines  will  cost  $10,000,000 
more.  If  it  could  be  held  so,  it  would  satisfy  the 

75 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

farmers  and  the  states  which  lie  behind  it.  Un- 
fortunately, or  perhaps  fortunately,  for  the  navi- 
gator, it  cannot  be  held  so.  A  large  percentage  is 
lost  every  year  by  the  caving  away  of  the  banks 
under  it,  and  new  loops  are  continually  being 
constructed  around  such  threatened  breaks.  This 
costs  heavily,  and  can  only  be  finally  guarded 
against  by  the  use  of  revetment,  such  as  will  be 
described  in  the  chapter  on  the  minor  bed.  The 
development  of  the  river  for  navigation  also  re- 
quires the  use  of  this  revetment,  and  needs  also 
what  the  farmer  desires  but  does  not  demand,  the 
close  proximity  of  the  levee  to  the  river  bank 
even  in  the  points-within-bends. 

But  before  such  a  radical  measure  as  this  is 
adopted,  there  is  a  new  need  to  be  solved  in  levee 
construction.  Levees  as  they  stand  are  but  walls 
of  earth.  A  long  flood  standing  against  them 
lessens  their  resistance.  Any  small  animal  can 
cause  an  unsuspected  hole  in  them  and  produce 
disaster.  The  least  break  destroys  their  utility  for 
scores  of  miles.  It  is  therefore  essential  that  there 
should  be  added  to  the  levee  system  some  feature 
by  which  it  may  be  rendered  water-tight  and 

76 


LEVEE  BUILDING 

tight  against  the  borers.  Such  a  solution  will  prob- 
ably be  found  in  a  concrete  core,  either  set  when 
the  levee  is  built,  poured  in  a  trench  afterward,  or 
created  by  the  driving  of  matched  concrete  piling. 
Steel  and  wood  are  useless  in  such  a  work,  as  the 
one  rusts  and  the  other  rots  away.  But  concrete 
endures  forever.  If  it  cracks  in  the  settling  of  the 
levees  it  leaves  but  a  tiny  gap,  through  which 
only  so  much  water  seeps  as  will  wet  the  ground 
immediately  behind  it.  If  the  top  of  the  levee  is 
battered  off  by  waves,  it  but  uncovers  the  concrete 
wall,  which  stands  firm.  A  boring  animal  will  be 
turned  back,  or,  if  he  finds  a  crack,  go  through  a 
substance  which  will  not  cave  off,  and  which  pre- 
vents the  hole  widening  to  a  crevasse.  And  more 
than  all,  the  seepage  through  concrete  will  be  so 
slight  that  the  whole  back  half  of  the  wall  will 
remain  almost  entirely  dry,  and  therefore  perma- 
nently stable,  so  that  there  will  be  no  sloughing 
off  and  no  collapsing  at  critical  moments. 

Some  such  solution  will  be  found,  and  in  time 
the  levee  walls  will  be  so  constructed,  close  to  the 
river,  on  both  sides,  and  protected  by  permanent 
banks  in  front.  The  lands  which  they  protect  are 

77 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

so  fertile  that  from  a  bale  and  a  half  to  two  bales 
of  cotton  can  be  grown  to  the  acre,  and  in  corn, 
alfalfa,  and  truck  they  produce  all  the  way  up  to 
$100  an  acre  a  year.  In  fact,  much  of  the  land, 
cleared  and  drained,  is  already  worth  $100  an 
acre,  and  will  before  many  years  be  worth  much 
more.  It  has  river  and  railway  transportation  fa- 
cilities to  many  markets,  and  is  certain  to  become 
one  of  the  richest  gardens  in  the  world.  If  the 
St.  Francis  alone  were  completely  occupied,  and 
if  it  produced  in  a  single  year  but  $10,000  to 
the  square  mile, — and  it  is  capable  of  more 
than  quadrupling  that,  —  it  would  yield  in  a  year 
$60,000,000,  or  all  that  the  entire  levee  system 
has  cost  to  the  present  time. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  MINOR  BED:  KEGULAKIZATION 

THE  principal  object  of  the  development  of 
the  minor  bed  of  a  river  is  the  establishment 
of  regular  navigation.  The  accomplishment  of 
this  purpose  requires  that  there  should  be  created 
a  channel  which  shall  have  at  all  stages,  low  and 
high,  an  adequate  depth  and  width,  not  too  sharp 
curves  and  not  too  strong  a  current  for  the  eco- 
nomical transportation  of  cargoes.  The  depth  of 
water  over  the  shoalest  bar  determines  the  carry- 
ing capacity  of  the  entire  stream.  Though  inter- 
ruption by  ice  during  certain  months,  or  inter- 
ruption by  shoal  water  in  summer  during  a  period 
which  it  is  possible  to  predict  with  considerable 
accuracy  from  year  to  year,  do  not  debar  a  river 
from  profitable  use,  uncertain  interruptions,  the 
danger  of  occasional  bars,  the  presence  of  un- 
suspected snags,  or  any  uncertainty  in  the  chan- 
nel, instantly  remove  the  river  containing  them 
from  the  list  of  secure  burden-bearers  to  the 

79 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

position  now  occupied  by  the  Missouri  and  most 
other  American  streams.  Money  spent  on  such  a 
river  which  does  not  take  this  into  account  may 
be  spent  for  decades  without  profitable  return. 

This  development  of  the  minor  bed  is  chiefly 
accomplished  by  measures  which  fall  under  two 
heads,  regularization  and  canalization.  Regular- 
ization, which  is  the  method  usually  employed  on 
soft-bottomed  rivers  and  on  streams  which  have 
ample  water  and  gentle  currents,  consists  in  the 
erection  of  works  of  various  sorts,  which  consti- 
tute or  create  false  banks  and  directrices  for  the 
river,  giving  it  a  width  so  nearly  uniform  as  to 
preserve  a  fairly  even  depth  and  cross  section. 
Canalization,  which  is  employed  on  the  Ohio  and 
on  other  hard-bottomed  rivers  or  streams  of  little 
water  or  too  swift  descent,  consists  in  the  crea- 
tion of  a  series  of  slack-water  pools  or  canals, 
separated  by  dams,  and  connected,  for  purposes 
of  navigation,  by  locks. 

Methods  of  regularization  differ  in  clear  and 
in  silt-bearing  rivers.  On  the  Ohio,  where  they 
are  used  as  auxiliary  to  the  lock  and  dam  method, 
the  works  are  built  solidly,  of  rock  and  timber, 

80 


THE  MINOR  BED 

to  act  as  actual  false  banks  to  the  river.  On  the 
Mississippi,  in  which  no  such  works  could  be 
given  a  permanent  foundation,  they  are  of  frail 
construction,  designed  to  persuade  the  river  to 
deposit  sand  and  silt  about  them,  and  so  create 
a  wall  from  its  own  store  of  material  which  will 
accomplish  the  desired  object. 

These  works  of  regularization  on  the  Lower 
Mississippi  consist  principally  of  two  things  :  re- 
vetment, or  false  bank  protection ;  dikes  and 
other  silt-arresting  devices  for  filling  in  undesir- 
able channels.  By  the  use  of  these  and  certain 
accessories  it  is  possible  to  obtain  in  this  stretch 
of  the  river  twelve,  fourteen,  or  even  a  consider- 
ably greater  depth  at  the  lowest  stage  of  the 
river,  and  to  guarantee  its  continuity. 

The  manner  in  which  the  minor  bed  of  the 
Mississippi  winds  to  and  fro  across  the  major  bed 
has  been  already  described.  Within  this  minor 
bed  there  is  another  groove,  which  crosses  and 
recrosses  it  even  more  frequently  than  the  inter- 
mediate groove  crosses  the  valley.  This  is  the 
channel,  an  irregular  cut,  in  which  flows  the 
swiftest  current  of  the  river  and  in  which  travel 

81 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

vessels  using  the  stream.  The  current  of  the 
lower  river  varies,  in  the  channel,  from  about  two 
to  about  eight  or  nine  miles  an  hour,  the  usual 
flow  being  about  three  miles,  and  the  maximum 
attained  only  on  the  foreside  of  an  advancing 
flood  wave  of  extreme  height.  If  a  stream  of 
water  of  that  velocity  be  caused  to  flow  down  a 
sloping  wooden  trough,  if  it  is  started  perfectly 
true  down  the  centre  and  meets  no  obstruction, 
it  will  flow  evenly  all  the  way.  But  if  it  be  started 
diagonally  it  will  strike  against  one  wall,  and 
there  reflecting  will  cross  and  strike  against  the 
other,  and  will  continue  this  process  as  long  as 
it  flows  in  the  trough.  Though  all  the  trough 
will  be  full  of  water,  there  will  be  distinctly 
traceable  this  swift  curving  line  across  and  back, 
while  in  the  nodes  or  places  within  the  loops 
there  will  be  still  or  slowly  moving  water  which 
may  be  running  upstream  in  an  eddy  if  the  outer 
current  be  swift  enough.  If  this  water  be  filled 
to  its  suspending  point  with  silt,  in  a  short  time 
it  will  build  a  typical  river-bed  for  itself,  deposit- 
ing earthen  material  in  the  nodes  until  it  is  as 
high,  or  nearly  as  high,  as  the  water  surface, 

82 


THE  MINOR  BED 

spreading  a  thin  flat  layer  of  silt  or  sand  in  the 
crossing  where  it  goes  from  side  to  side,  and 
keeping  the  trough  scoured  clean  in  a  narrow 
strip  where  it  impinges  on  the  wall. 

If  the  banks  against  which  the  river  impinges 
be  made  of  earth  instead  of  wood,  the  speed  of 
the  water  can  be  increased  to  a  certain  point 
without  disturbing  them.  When  it  has  reached 
such  a  speed  that  it  becomes  avid  for  silt,  or 
has  attained  an  abrading  force  which  the  banks 
cannot  resist,  it  begins  to  eat  them  away,  often 
undermining  the  lower  part  so  that  the  upper  falls 
in,  and  thus  loading  the  river  up  with  a  new  bur- 
den. The  swiftest  part  of  the  current  of  this  arti- 
ficial stream  is  the  portion  immediately  proxi- 
mate to  the  bank.  It  is  this  part  which  receives 
and  which  can  carry  the  burden.  But  as  it  ap- 
proaches the  crossing  and  the  movement  becomes 
more  generally  distributed  in  a  greater  breadth 
of  water,  this  part  no  longer  moves  with  such 
speed,  and  it  begins  to  drop  the  extra  load.  So 
we  shall  see  in  our  trough  the  crossings  become 
more  shoal  as  the  bends  are  torn  out.  More  than 
this,  the  tearing  out  of  the  bend  bank  alters  the 

83 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

shape  of  the  stream.  The  current  running  out 
of  it  is  deflected  at  a  new  angle,  and  strikes  into 
the  side  of  the  next  node  above  or  below  the 
crossing.  It  there  finds  a  bank  unadapted  to  re- 
ceive it,  and  again  eats  it  away,  tearing  up  also 
enough  of  the  bottom  to  form  a  new  crossing 
channel  in  this  direction.  This  altering  movement 
will  continue  on  downstream  in  a  sort  of  wave, 
and  the  whole  channel  will  continue  to  shift  and 
change  until  the  river  has  remained  for  a  con- 
siderable time  at  an  even  stage  in  regard  both  to 
height  and  to  speed,  when  gradually  the  banks 
will  become  adapted  and  stable  and  the  stream 
will  flow  steadily  in  a  true  channel. 

This  condition  of  shifting  channel,  of  moving 
bars,  and  of  caving  banks,  prevails  continually 
on  the  Lower  Mississippi  except  in  such  places  as 
the  engineers  have  had  money  with  which  to  pre- 
vent it.  The  main  current  sweeps  with  a  mighty 
rush  around  the  outside  of  bend  after  bend,  cross- 
ing with  less  speed  from  the  foot  of  one  to  the 
head  of  the  next,  each  bend  being  curved  in  the 
opposite  direction  from  that  next  above  it.  These 
bends  often  remain  stable  for  years ;  and  as  often 

84 


AN   ISLAND   CHUTE,  OPEN 


A   CLOSED   CHUTE 


THE  MINOR  BED 

continue  caving  year  after  year,  gradually  reach- 
ing back  until  the  river  has  so  lengthened  its 
slope  in  them  that  it  is  no  longer  able  to  erode 
the  bank.  In  this  process  of  retreat  it  not  infre- 
quently happens  that  two  bends  —  never  contigu- 
ous, but  separated  by  at  least  one  reverse  bend  — 
approach  each  other,  back  to  back,  until  either  a 
flood  pouring  over  the  bank  or  the  caving  through 
of  the  last  obstructing  wall  makes  an  opening 
and  creates  a  new  channel.  This  is  called  a  cut- 
off. As  there  are  usually  eight  to  twenty  miles  of 
channel  around  the  loop  from  side  to  side  of  this 
gap,  and  as  the  fall  in  that  distance  is  from  four 
to  eight  feet,  the  flood  which  pours  through  the 
new  cut  is  naturally  as  destructive  as  that  which 
bursts  through  a  levee  crevasse.  In  a  short  time, 
sometimes  in  five  or  ten  minutes,  the  main  chan- 
nel of  the  river  is  pouring  down  through  the  gap 
and  only  a  sluggish  flow  is  left  around  the  old 
bend. 

Such  a  cut-off  is  a  calamity  not  only  for  those 
who  dwell  on  the  land  and  for  those  who  live  by 
the  now  abandoned  loop,  but  for  rivermen  as 
well.  In  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  cut-off  the 

85 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

river  has  an  increased  current,  due  to  having  an 
immensely  steep  slope  in  a  few  miles.  This  gives 
it  the  ability  to  tear  out  its  banks.  It  has,  more- 
over, entirely  new  direction  of  attack  upon  them. 
Both  above  and  below  it  shifts  and  alters,  tears 
out  and  builds  up,  and  this  process  must  continue 
for  several  years,  to  the  destruction  of  channels 
and  prohibition  of  any  but  the  most  hazardous 
navigation,  until  the  river  has  again  restored  its 
condition  of  natural  equilibrium;  in  which,  at 
ordinary  stages,  it  has  slope  and  current  propor- 
tioned to  its  bank  material.  Such  a  cut-off  never 
shortens  the  river  even  locally  for  more  than 
these  few  years,  as  the  river  must  lengthen  all  its 
adjacent  bends  to  "  take  up  the  slack"  before  it 
can  settle  down. 

The  interests  of  navigation,  and  equally  of 
those  who  own  the  land  on  the  bank,  and  those 
who  live  farther  back  but  are  protected  by  levees 
which  in  turn  depend  upon  the  stability  of  the 
bank,  require  that  the  bank  in  every  bend  shall 
be  made  permanent.  Years  of  experiment  and 
careful  study  of  the  river  have  developed  an  en- 
tirely adequate  method  of  attaining  this  end, 

86 


THE   MINOR  BED 

known  as  "  revetment."  This  process,  as  put  to 
use  on  the  Lower  Mississippi,  where  it  is  found 
on  a  larger  scale  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world, 
consists  in  protecting1  the  bank  below  low  water 
with  a  huge  and  continuous  mattress  woven  of 
brush  and  galvanized  wire;  and  preserving  the 
bank  above  low  water  with  a  heavy  facing  of 
stone,  brick,  or  concrete.  The  development  of 
this  process  to  its  present  stage  has  been  one 
of  the  greatest  attainments  of  the  army  engi- 
neers working  under  the  direction  of  the  Missis- 
sippi River  Commission ;  and  their  success  has 
been  so  complete  that  the  permanency  of  the  mat- 
tresses and  the  success  of  their  operation  are 
now  a  mathematical  certainty. 

To  be  entirely  and  finally  effective,  however, 
revetment  must  begin  at  a  fixed  point,  where  the 
river  cannot  shift,  and  proceed  thence  down- 
stream, regularly,  no  bend  being  omitted,  so  that 
each  may  properly  lead  into  the  next  below  and 
receive  from  the  next  above.  Nowhere  has  this 
yet  been  thoroughly  attempted,  as  the  investment 
of  the  government  has  only  been  sufficient  from 
year  to  year  to  revet  curves  which  were  in  especial 

87 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

danger ;  and  as  a  result  the  works  have  been  at- 
tacked from  above  and  from  below  by  the  river 
and  millions  of  dollars'  worth  have  been  swept 
away.  Nevertheless,  in  isolated  bends  along  the 
lower  river  there  are  now  existing  more  than  a 
score  of  miles  of  such  protection  —  out  of  a  total 
of  400  or  500  which  will  be  eventually  needed, 
representing  a  present  investment  of  about 
$8,000,000. 

When  a  bend  is  to  be  revetted,  stakes  are 
driven  along  the  shore  on  a  line  representing  the 
zero  contour,  that  is,  they  stand  on  the  line  that 
would  be  the  water's  edge  at  zero  of  the  gauge, 
or  normal  low  water.  Mooring  piles  are  then 
driven  at  the  head  of  the  bend,  and  to  these  are 
attached  a  series  of  mooring  barges,  set  out  nor- 
mally from  the  shore,  end  to  end,  as  far  as  the 
mattress  is  to  extend.  A  common  width  on  the 
lower  river  is  300  feet.  Parallel  to  these  and 
close  below  them  are  then  moored  an  equal  row 
of  weaving  barges,  equipped  with  launching  ways 
sloping  toward  the  water  upstream,  and  with 
working  platforms  and  coils  of  wire  cable  at  the 
head  of  the  ways.  Every  bar  and  towhead  of  the 

88 


Photographed  by  Col.  John  A    Ockerson, 

WEAVING  A  FASCINE  REVETMENT  MATTRESS 


AN  EARLY  TYPE  OF  WOVEN  BRUSH  REVETMENT 


THE  MINOR  BED 

lower  river  furnishes  abundant  slim  willows  and 
cottonwoods,  which  spring  up  with  amazing  ra- 
pidity and  provide  an  ever  ready  supply  of  ma- 
terial for  the  mattress  weaver.  These  willows  are 
brought  in  bargeloads  and  delivered  to  the  weav- 
ing barges.  Of  large  willow  poles,  and  sometimes 
of  timbers,  and  heavy  galvanized  iron  cables,  a 
"mat-head"  is  then  woven, — a  tightly  wound 
bundle  sometimes  two  feet  in  diameter,  — to  which 
are  attached  both  temporary  and  permanent  moor- 
ing lines,  the  latter  carried  ashore  and  fastened 
to  sunken  piling.  This  mat-head  is  lowered  to 
the  water,  the  weaving  barges  being  downstream 
from  it,  and  then  the  actual  weaving  is  begun. 
The  willows  are  bound  in  fascines,  or  bundles, 
usually  in  this  river  about  one  foot  thick,  the 
trees  being  two  to  four  inches  thick  at  the  butt 
and  about  twenty  feet  long.  They  are  laid  with 
broken  joints,  butt  to  butt,  and  each  fascine  is 
lashed  tightly  to  the  mat-head  or  to  the  next 
forward  fascine  by  the  wire  weaving  strands 
which  pass  under  two  and  over  one,  round  and 
round,  including  at  each  turn  the  longitudinal 
cables  which,  uncoiling  as  the  mat  proceeds,  are 

89 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

carried  the  whole  length  of  the  mat  to  give  it 
strength. 

In  addition  to  these,  diagonal  strands  are  some- 
times included  in  long  mattresses ;  and  diagonal 
tree  braces  are  also  used.  Willow  trees  slightly 
larger  than  those  which  make  the  fascines  are 
lashed  longitudinally  along  the  mat  for  stiffening, 
and  to  form  a  hold  for  the  ballast.  As  each  strip 
of  mat  is  finished  it  is  launched,  and  the  weaving 
barge  drops  aft,  the  completed  part  lying  in  an 
unbroken  carpet  on  the  surface  of  the  water.  As 
the  size  of  the  mat  increases,  the  danger  of  losing 
it  in  the  current  becomes  greater,  and  it  is  seldom 
they  are  made  over  1000  feet  long.  The  sinking 
of  them  is  also  a  period  of  great  danger. 

When  the  whole  mat  has  been  woven,  perhaps 
300  by  1000  feet  in  area,  the  mooring  and  weav- 
ing barges  are  removed,  and  the  whole  lies  afloat 
held  by  the  permanent  wire  moorings  leading  up- 
stream from  the  mat-head  and  from  several  points 
along  its  length.  The  mat  is  extremely  closely 
woven  but  very  flexible.  Barges  loaded  with  rub- 
ble stone  are  then  brought  alongside, — this  stone 
being  obtained  from  riverside  quarries  on  the 

90 


THE  MINOR  BED 

Ohio  and  Upper  Mississippi,  —  and  the  stone  is 
thrown  upon  them,  or  rather  laid  carefully  along 
what  will  be  the  upper  side  of  the  stiffening  poles, 
until  the  whole  mat  is  evenly  weighted  and  just 
awash.  Then  more  stone  is  brought  down  at  the 
head  and  thrown  on  until  the  mat-head  sinks. 
The  current  bears  the  stone  barge  down  over  the 
mat,  and  as  it  advances  the  stone  is  thrown  ahead, 
sinking  more  of  the  mat.  At  this  time  a  heavy 
current  may  buckle  and  destroy  the  whole,  so  that 
great  care  is  necessary  in  manipulating  the  stone 
barges.  An  hour  to  three  hours  is  usually  required 
for  putting  the  whole  thing  in  place,  where  it  lies 
like  a  carpet,  fitting  the  irregularities  of  the  river 
bottom,  extending  out  well  into  the  middle  of  the 
channel.  Such  a  mat,  in  place  on  the  bottom,  re- 
presents an  investment  of  about  $19  a  running 
foot. 

When  this  lower  bank  protection  has  been  com- 
pleted a  hydraulic  grader  is  brought  into  play,  and 
the  upper  bank  is  sloped  away  one  on  three,  or  a 
total  sloping  face  of  about  120  feet  width  for  the 
average  upper  bank.  When  this  has  been  graded 
evenly  it  is  covered  to  the  depth  of  two  or  three 

91 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

inches  with  a  layer  of  quarry  spawls,  or  small 
chips  of  stone,  and  over  this  another  thicker  layer 
of  rubble  is  spread,  making  the  whole  about  a 
foot  thick.  Sometimes  instead  of  this,  however, 
wooden  scantling  is  laid  in  pens  ten  feet  square, 
and  a  layer  of  bricks  laid  in  them,  then  covered 
with  a  wire  mesh,  another  layer  of  scantling  put 
on  the  pens,  a  thin  cement  thrown  into  mesh  and 
bricks,  and  a  top  layer  of  brick  put  in  the  upper 
pen.  Instead  of  this,  again,  sometimes  single 
pens  are  used,  and  these  are  filled  with  a  concrete 
made  of  cement  and  river  bottom  gravel,  the 
whole  bound  with  a  wire  mesh.  And  another  ex- 
pedient is  that  of  using  this  concrete  as  an  arti- 
ficial rubble  to  spread  over  the  bank  without  the 
pens.  Each  of  these  methods  has  been  found  use- 
ful, the  simple  rubble  being  as  yet  the  cheaper, 
the  others  having  increasing  attractiveness  for 
the  engineer  as  he  advances  downstream,  farther 
from  his  quarries.  This  upper  bank  protection 
costs  in  the  neighborhood  of  $10  a  running  foot, 
making  the  whole  cost  of  a  revetted  bend  about 
$29  or  $30  a  running  foot,  sometimes  reaching 
$35 ;  but  capable  of  being  brought  down,  in 

92 


THE   MINOR  BED 

systematic  and  large  workings,  to  less  than  $25 
a  foot. 

Eevetment  of  this  character,  though  in  smaller 
streams  less  costly,  is  necessary  in  every  bend  of 
every  navigable  river  where  there  is  danger  of 
the  bank  cutting  out  and  endangering  either  the 
channel  or  the  levee.  To  become  a  successful  car- 
rier, a  river  must  offer  a  channel  as  sure  and 
reliable  as  the  roadbed  of  a  first-class  railroad.  It 
may  not  need  as  heavy  or  as  broad  revetment  as 
the  Lower  Mississippi  —  there  are  few  rivers  as 
large  and  as  deep  as  this  to  be  so  fixed.  But  from 
the  head  of  navigation  on  the  Missouri  to  the 
Jetties  of  Southwest  Pass,  and  on  all  the  princi- 
pal tributaries,  this  must  be  the  final  resource  in 
such  a  case.  On  the  Lower  Mississippi  this  means, 
•with  a  very  few  exceptions,  the  revetment  of  the 
outside  of  every  curve  on  the  stream,  in  all  a 
total  somewhere  between  400  and  800  miles,  part 
on  each  side  of  the  stream. 

Revetment,  however,  is  only  one  part  of  the 
improvement  of  a  river-bed  by  regularization.  It 
gives  us  a  fixed  shore  for  the  stream  at  all  points 
against  which  the  river  impinges.  Its  immediate 

93 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

influence  is  to  cause  the  river  at  its  foot  to  scour 
deeper  than  it  already  is,  a  thing  which  is  seldom 
necessary  on  the  lower  river,  where  these  bends 
attain  depths  of  more  than  100  feet  in  the  chan- 
nel (below  the  lowest  low  water)  even  above 
Memphis,  and  are  generally  at  least  50  feet  deep 
below  Cairo.  Having  these  bends  held  with  a  firm 
bank  so  that  they  discharge  the  current  on  a  cer- 
tain tangent  toward  the  other  bank,  it  is  necessary 
to  contract  and  control  that  current  in  the  cross- 
ing which  it  then  enters,  that  that  also  may  be 
dug  deep  by  the  stream.  This  is  accomplished 
by  several  kinds  of  construction,  most  of  which 
on  the  Lower  Mississippi  take  the  form  of  silt- 
arresting  devices,  such  as  brush  hurdles,  abatis 
dikes,  and  permeable  fences,  which  check  but 
do  not  stop  the  stream. 

The  proper  path  of  the  main  current  over  a 
crossing  having  been  determined,  — by  the  use  of 
floats,  and  by  sounding,  the  river  itself  deepening 
the  path  which  is  easiest  for  it,  —  directing  dikes 
are  built  out  from  the  shore  on  either  side  to 
cause  it  to  hold  this  course.  On  each  side,  or  on 
either  side,  hurdles  are  constructed  extending 

94 


THE   MINOR  BED 

straight  out  from  the  low-water  bars  into  the  cur- 
rent, at  short  intervals.  These  dikes  are  built  of 
piling,  well  braced,  and  filled  in  with  brush 
weighed  down  with  rubble.  About  the  foot  and 
end  of  each  is  a  foot-mattress,  so  called,  woven  of 
brush,  well  ballasted,  to  prevent  the  river  scouring 
under  them.  Such  a  dike  checks  the  flow  of  the 
water  just  enough  to  cause  silt  to  fill  in  below 
and  around  it.  If  the  dike  is,  or  becomes,  heavy 
enough  to  prevent  the  flow  and  make  an  actual 
head  between  the  water  above  and  that  below  it, 
it  is  apt  to  "blow  out"  or  scour,  destroying  its 
usefulness.  As  a  silt  arrester,  however,  it  builds 
up  the  land  around  it,  and  these  filled-in  areas, 
becoming  contiguous,  form  a  new  shore  line,  hold- 
ing the  low-water  current  to  a  lesser  surface  so 
that  it  necessarily  scours  the  crossing  deeper.  In 
some  long  and  fairly  straight  reaches  the  current 
is  thus  forced  from  one  side  for  a  considerable 
distance  over  against  a  revetted  bank  opposite. 

Abatis  dikes,  which  were  first  used  on  the 
Missouri,  consist  of  a  frame  of  piling  and  timbers, 
set  athwart  the  current  in  the  part  of  the  river 
which  it  is  desired  to  fill.  Braced  under  the  up- 

95 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

stream  timbering  and  over  the  downstream,  so 
that  they  slope  downstream  and  upward  at  an 
angle  of  about  forty-five  degrees,  willows  are  set 
thickly  along  the  whole  distance.  The  river  runs 
through  them  easily,  but  they  slacken  it  enough 
to  retain  its  burden. 

The  aim  of  the  Mississippi  River  Commission 
has  been  to  restrict  the  river  below  Cairo  to  a 
fairly  uniform  width  of  3500  feet.  It  has  been 
unable  to  do  this,  for  lack  of  money,  but  in 
certain  regions  it  has  expended  large  sums  to  this 
end.  When  it  took  charge  of  the  river  in  1879, 
there  were  two  long-famous  regions  of  extremely 
shoal  water,  namely,  at  Plum  Point  and  at  Stack 
Island.  Plum  Point  is  opposite  the  middle  of  the 
St.  Francis  basin,  and  Stack  Island,  at  Lake 
Providence,  is  opposite  the  Yazoo.  In  each  of 
them  the  river,  annually  silted  up  at  high  water, 
and  annually  seeking  new  crossings  and  channels 
at  low  water,  had  eaten  at  both  its  banks  till 
they  were  from  two  to  three  miles  apart,  and  the 
intricate  crossings  in  between  were  shoal  and 
blocked  with  continually  shifting  bars.  Work  in 
Stack  Island  reach  was  soon  abandoned  for  lack 

96 


AN  ABATIS  DIKE  AT  LOW  WATER,  MISSOURI  RIVER 


AN  ABATIS  DIKE  AT  HIGH  WATER,  MISSOURI  RIVER 


THE  MINOR  BED 

of  funds,  and  nearly  all  that  had  been  done  there 
was  lost;  but  by  gradual  work  there  has  been 
recovered  nearly  1000  acres  of  land,  built  up  by 
silt-arresting  devices,  and  a  channel  has  been 
established  which,  formerly  three  or  four  feet 
deep  at  low  water,  is  easily  maintained  by  occa- 
sional dredging  to  a  depth  of  ten  feet. 

Plum  Point  reach,  extending  for  sixty  or 
seventy  miles  along  the  river  on  the  Tennessee 
front,  has  always  been  the  chief  scene  of  the 
activities  of  the  commission.  There  by  miles  of 
revetment,  and  by  the  use  of  hundreds  of  dikes 
and  silt-arresting  structures  of  many  kinds,  they 
have  established  a  ten-foot  channel  easily  main- 
tained, and  have  shown  the  way  to  establish  the 
rest  of  the  river  in  similar  regularity. 

Some  years  ago,  by  direction  of  Congress,  the 
commission  began  experimenting  with  dredges, 
and  developed  large  possibilities  by  means  of 
suction  or  hydraulic  dredges,  which  pump  up  a 
mixture  of  sand  and  water  and  discharge  it 
through  long  pipes,  which  either  end  in  the  slack 
water  behind  a  bar  or  distribute  the  surplus 
material  in  some  other  out-of-the-way  place.  Al- 

97 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

though  a  dredged  channel  is  only  a  makeshift, 
no  final  plan  for  river  improvement  having  been 
adopted,  Congress  later  ordered  revetment  work 
abandoned  except  where  necessary  to  save  a  levee, 
and  has  required  the  commission  to  build  and 
operate  a  large  fleet  of  these  hydraulics.  They 
are  to  be  seen  now,  in  every  low-water  season, 
patrolling  the  river.  When  the  river  begins  to 
fall  after  a  flood,  the  dredges  are  made  ready. 
When  the  stream  still  stands  at  ten  or  twelve  feet 
on  the  gauge,  engineers  are  sent  to  those  cross- 
ings from  which  trouble  is  anticipated,  and 
soundings  are  made  to  show  the  trend  of  the 
channel.  If  it  appears  to  be  cutting  out  properly 
as  the  river  drops,  it  is  not  necessary  to  dredge. 
If,  however,  a  second  sounding  shows  that  the 
river  is  spreading  too  much,  and  not  forming  any 
one  distinct  channel,  the  dredge  is  called  for. 
The  engineer  determines  what  appears  to  be  the 
proper  line  for  a  crossing,  and  the  dredge  runs 
into  this  and  makes  a  cut  200  or  250  feet  wide 
through  it.  If  the  crossing  is  well  chosen  the 
river  will  at  once  adopt  this  new  chute,  and  will 
broaden  and  deepen  it  and  continue  to  cut  it  as 

98 


THE  MINOR  BED 

it  drops.  If  it  is  unwisely  chosen  the  river  quickly 
silts  it  up  and  tries  to  break  out  elsewhere,  and 
the  engineer  makes  a  new  line  and  tries  again. 
Generally  but  one  or  two  cuts  are  necessary  to 
establish  a  crossing,  but  sometimes  three  or  four 
have  to  be  made.  In  an  average  season  from  four 
to  seven  crossings  have  thus  to  be  dredged  be- 
tween Cairo  and  New  Orleans,  to  maintain  a  reg- 
ular channel  nine  or  ten  feet  in  depth.  In  ad- 
dition to  the  expense  of  maintaining  a  large  fleet 
and  dredging  local  harbors,  this  requires  the 
annual  expenditure  of  about  $400,000.  During 
the  years  1907  and  1908  an  experimental  chan- 
nel 14  feet  deep,  at  first  250  and  later  500  feet 
wide,  has  been  maintained  over  a  considerable 
part  of  the  lower  river. 

The  Mississippi  Eiver  Commission  has  been  in 
existence  since  1879.  Before  that  date  there 
were  some  appropriations  for  snagging  and  gen- 
eral river  improvement ;  but  the  following  state- 
ment, which  shows  the  amount  appropriated  to 
be  spent  by  this  body  up  to  1906,  includes  very 
nearly  everything  which  has  been  expended  be- 
tween Cairo,  Illinois,  and  the  Head  of  the  Passes, 

99 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

toward  confining  the  Mississippi  to  a  proper  major 
bed  and  making  it  develop  a  navigable  chan- 
nel in  the  minor  bed.  It  must  be  considered  in 
large  measure  a  tuition  fee,  by  which  we  have 
learned  those  things  which  it  is  necessary  to  do 
to  establish  fourteen-foot  navigation  from  Cairo 
to  the  sea. 

FINANCIAL  STATEMENT  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI  RIVER 
COMMISSION,  JUNE  30,  1906 

Expenses  and  salaries $770,480.93 

Surveys,  gauges,  and  observations    .         .         .  2,237,850.62 

Levees 20,612,317.06 

Revetment  and  contraction,  permanent  channel  im- 
provement and  protection 11,256,650.37 

Dredges  and  dredging 3,903,642.19 

Experimental  dikes 100,000.00 

Plant  and  miscellaneous 2,542,357.08 

Improving  harbors  and  tributaries,  except  Vicksburg 

harbor 6,370,469.01 

Improving  Vicksburg  harbor 582,980.98 

Works  above  Cairo 737,632.53 


Total  expended 49,114,380.77 

Balance  unexpended,  June  30,  1906     ....       1,384,040.30 
Allotments  available  and  unallotted         .        .         .  2,001,500.00 

Total  appropriated $52,499,921.07 

In  addition  to  the  demands  of  navigation,  the 
complete  revetment  and  final  establishment  of 
the  Mississippi  and  its  tributaries  is  urged  by  the 
necessity  of  preserving  our  valley  soils.  Where 
its  banks  are  unstable  the  river  eats  at  them  al- 

100 


THE  MINOR  BED 

most  continuously,  sometimes  traveling  several 
miles  through  a  rich  land,  sideways,  eating  up 
the  old,  rich  accumulations  of  mould,  and  leav- 
ing on  the  opposite  side  sand  barrens  which  will 
require  years  before  they  become  productive.  A 
steamboat  journey  along  the  river  discloses  for 
mile  after  mile  the  bank  continually  dropping, 
dropping,  here  a  lump,  there  a  hatful  of  earth; 
falling  in,  sometimes  a  yard  or  more,  sometimes 
half  an  acre  or  even  an  acre  at  a  slice.  Such  land 
is  worth  now,  or  would  be  if  it  had  protection, 
one  hundred  dollars  an  acre.  It  produces  easily 
that  much  in  a  year.  In  the  future,  as  our  country 
fills,  this  rich  soil  will  be  of  almost  fabulous  value, 
and  we  cannot  afford  to  allow  it  to  be  dissolved 
and  its  best  elements  borne  in  suspension  or  so- 
lution to  the  sea.  In  the  end  it  will  be  this  need 
of  soil  conservation,  almost  or  quite  as  much  as 
the  need  of  channel  definition  and  flood  protec- 
tion, which  will  force  the  complete  revetment  of 
the  banks. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

THE  Mississippi  discharges  its  waters  and  sed- 
iment into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  by  several 
channels,  through  a  true  and  typical  delta.  In  a 
channel  averaging  about  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  feet  deep,  but  in  many  places  exceeding  one 
hundred  and  fifty,  between  alluvial  banks  built 
up  of  its  own  deposit,  it  approaches  the  sea  with 
a  majesty  and  simple  grandeur  contrasting 
strangely  with  the  hurly-burly  with  which  it  tears 
swiftly  down  its  upper  reaches.  Unhindered  by 
bar  or  island  for  the  last  three  hundred  miles, 
unfretted  by  snag  or  rock,  rising  and  falling 
but  a  small  fraction  of  its  up-river  flood  height,  it 
finds  comfort  in  a  bed  which  has  not  appreciably 
changed  in  centuries.  It  continues  thus  to  a  point 
more  than  one  hundred  miles  below  New  Orleans. 
Then,  widening  out  from  the  half  mile  which  has 
been  ample  for  the  deep  river,  it  shoals  as  it 
widens,  until,  when  its  banks  are  something  over 

102 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

two  miles  apart,  the  depth  of  water  is  but  little 
more  than  thirty-five  feet.  At  that  point  it  divides 
into  three  branches,  which  extend  like  the  toes 
of  a  duck  over  the  map  of  the  Gulf,  narrow  rib- 
bons of  water  bordered  by  as  narrow  bands  of 
land,  and  webbed  between  with  marshes  and 
shoals.  These  three  branches  are  the  main  passes 
of  the  Mississippi:  Southwest,  into  which  flows 
about  fifty  per  cent  of  the  stream;  South, 
which  obtains  little  more  than  ten  per  cent ;  and 
Pass  a  TOutre,  into  which  flows  the  remainder. 
These,  in  turn,  branch  before  reaching  the  sea. 
Southwest  Pass,  which  is  eighteen  miles  long, 
has  several  minor  bayous  emptying  from  it  into 
the  shallows.  South  Pass  formerly  gave  one  fifth 
of  its  water  to  Grand  Bayou,  now  closed  by  a 
dam.  A  POutre  divides  into  Southeast,  North- 
east, and  many  minor  channels. 

These  Passes,  as  a  rule,  maintain  an  even  width 
and  depth  from  "  Head  of  the  Passes/*  where 
they  are  formed,  nearly  to  the  Gulf.  A  TOutre, 
starting  with  about  twenty  feet  depth,  shoals  as 
it  divides.  South  Pass,  before  the  construction  of 
the  Eads  Jetties,  was  blocked  at  the  head  by  a 

103 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

seventeen-foot  shoal,  but  below  that  retained  a 
depth  of  about  forty  feet  to  its  mouth,  where, 
spreading  out  like  both  the  others,  it  was  blocked 
by  a  bar  having  but  seven  feet  of  water.  South- 
west retains  a  width  of  a  third  of  a  mile  and  a 
depth  of  from  forty  to  fifty  feet  almost  to  the 
land's  end,  and  there,  widening  as  it  comes  to  the 
Gulf,  is  fronted  by  a  bar  over  which  the  natural 
depth  of  water  has  varied  from  eight  to  eighteen 
feet,  and  in  the  "palmy"  days  of  clipper  ships, 
when  this  was  the  great  river  mouth,  was  about 
sixteen. 

Each  of  these  Passes  is  flanked  by  soft  but 
fairly  stable  banks  of  alluvion,  on  which  grow 
grass  and  rushes  and  wild  rice,  and,  in  many  parts, 
dense  cane  brakes  and  willow  thickets.  The  off- 
channel  banks  are  horrid  with  tangles  of  stumps 
and  trees  brought  down  by  the  current,  but  the 
channel  side  is  usually  well  rounded  and  even. 
To  the  eye  the  Pass,  away  from  its  mouth  and 
head,  appears  like  a  huge  ship  canal ;  and  this,  in 
fact,  under  the  treatment  of  the  engineer,  is  ex- 
actly what  each  becomes.  The  low-lying  banks 
do  not  conceal  from  the  traveler  on  the  deck  of 

104 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

a  vessel  the  marshes  and  the  sea  itself  on  every 
side ;  and  from  a  masthead  the  whole  delta  forma- 
tion is  plainly  visible.  But  from  the  surface  of 
the  water  one  sees  ahead  and  astern  a  placid  river, 
ending  in  a  hazy  mirage  in  which  odd  clumps  of 
willows  take  grotesque  shapes,  and  imaginary 
castles  and  houses  mysteriously  appear ;  while  the 
banks  themselves  present  impenetrable  thickets 
of  rush  and  cane  and  willow,  which  for  all  the 
eye  can  see  might  extend  to  the  world's  end. 

Not  all  the  water  of  the  Mississippi  finds  its 
way  to  Head  of  the  Passes.  From  the  Red  River 
to  the  sea  there  are  many  bayous,  through  which 
flood  waters  now  discharge,  or  formerly  did  do  so. 
The  Atchafalaya  itself,  sometimes  considered  the 
former  mouth  of  the  Red,  once  took  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  Mississippi's  surplus  to  the  Gulf,  and 
still  does  receive  a  considerable  part.  Plaquemine 
and  La  Fourche  have  been  closed  up  by  locks  so 
that  the  land  along  them  shall  not  be  inundated 
by  the  big  river,  and  Manchac  and  others  have 
been  similarly  treated.  Bonnet  Carre,  where,  in 
1850,  the  river  broke  its  bounds  to  pour,  in  an 
enormous  yellow  flood,  into  Lake  Pontchartrain, 

105 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

shows  now  an  uninterrupted  levee.  But  below 
New  Orleans,  as  one  nears  Head  of  the  Passes, 
there  are  still  open  channels.  One  of  these,  called 
the  Jump,  leads  to  a  bayou,  a  route  through  which 
smugglers  once  made  their  way  to  Baratarian 
fastnesses,  and  by  which  fishermen  and  oyster 
dredgers  still  lead  then*  luggers.  The  Jump  is  a 
civilized  place  now.  The  levee  leads  quite  to  its 
margin,  there  but  a  low-lying  earthen  ridge.  Back 
of  the  levee  are  cottages,  and  back  of  them  again 
orange  and  pomola  trees,  which  bear  rich  burden. 
A  little  pier  makes  out,  on  which  the  crated  fruit 
awaits  the  gasoliner.  Perched  on  stilts  across  the 
Jump  from  the  landing  stands  the  deserted  cus- 
tom-house of  early  days;  and  beyond  that  no- 
thing but  the  still  untroubled  jungle  of  the  upper 
Delta,  without  levee  or  habitation.  Not  much 
water  goes  out  this  way  now,  though  at  one  time 
there  was  a  channel  twenty  feet  deep  into  the 
bayou,  and  during  the  years  of  Captain  Eads's 
work  his  steamboats  entered  here  daily  for  wil- 
lows. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  river,  not  far  below, 
opens  a  second,  larger,  and  more  picturesque  es- 

106 


THE  RIVER   MOUTH 

cape,  called  Cubitt's  Gap,  an  old  crevasse  through 
which  once  much  water  went  into  Breton  Sound, 
but  which  is  now  shoal  and  taking  but  little. 
This  and  the  Jump,  and  "Batiste  Collet's  Ca- 
nal," however,  are  but  minor  affairs.  The  bulk 
of  the  river  comes  down  to  the  broadening  at 
Head  of  the  Passes,  and  flows  out  through  the 
three  great  outlets. 

To  find  a  navigable  route  through  this  Delta 
to  the  sea  was  one  of  the  great  engineering  prob- 
lems of  the  nineteenth  century.  Upon  its  solution 
depended  the  commercial  future  of  the  entire 
central  valley ;  and  in  the  history  of  American 
engineering  there  is  no  more  prolonged  strug- 
gle between  different  interests,  no  more  dramatic 
staging  of  the  final  action,  than  the  opening  of 
South  Pass  to  navigation  by  James  B.  Eads. 

In  the  old  French  days,  Pass  a  T Outre  was, 
as  its  name  indicates,  the  outlet  channel  for  ship- 
ping. At  its  mouth  was  built  a  little  village  on 
stilts,  with  a  blockhouse  and  pilot  station,  to 
which  was  given  the  name  Balise ;  in  the  litera- 
ture of  fifty  years  ago  a  word  synonymous  with 
Louisiana,  New  Orleans,  and  the  Delta.  "  Bound 

107 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

for  the  Balise  "  was  a  current  expression  for  all 
craft  running  to  the  Great  Water,  and  in  all 
river  reference  the  word  was  as  commonly  sig- 
nificant of  the  actual  mouth  as  Port  Eads  has 
been  for  the  past  thirty  years. 

In  the  old  days  the  depth  of  water  on  the  bar 
at  the  Balise  varied  from  ten  to  fourteen  or  fif- 
teen feet,  sometimes  even  going  deeper,  and 
offering  safe  channel  to  the  shallow  craft  in 
which  the  French  and  Spanish  came  to  Louisiana. 
It  was  enough  for  the  British  gunboats  which 
came  to  bombard  Fort  St.  Philip  in  1814-15, 
and  it  offered  a  good  route  for  Captain  Shreve 
in  the  steamboat  Enterprise  when  he  carried  the 
British  prisoners  out  to  exchange  them  for  our 
men  on  the  fleet.  But  during  the  first  half  of  the 
century  it  gradually  shoaled,  and  that  at  South- 
west Pass  gradually  deepened  until  the  latter  be- 
came, for  the  clipper  ships,  the  only  route.  The 
pilots  transferred  their  homes  from  the  Balise  to 
a  little  bayou  running  out  from  Southwest  near 
its  mouth,  and  soon  a  picturesque  village,  with  a 
water  street  fifty  feet  wide,  and  bordered  with 
palm  trees  and  roses,  came  to  be  known  as  Pilot 

108 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

Town.  Over  Southwest  Pass  bar  went  nearly  all 
ships  into  and  out  of  the  Mississippi  until  the 
summer  of  1877,  and  in  the  years  of  its  use  oc- 
curred some  of  the  most  memorable  chapters  of 
river  history. 

It  was  the  custom  then  to  carry  cotton  to 
Europe  in  swift-flying  clipper  ships,  with  sharp 
bottoms  and  projecting  keels.  These  vessels  were 
loaded  with  cotton  frequently  to  a  depth  of 
eighteen  feet,  when  it  was  well  known  that  there 
was  on  the  bar  but  sixteen  feet  of  water  at  the 
highest  tide.  They  left  New  Orleans  in  fleets 
drawn  by  big  sidewheel  tugs,  and  as  they  ap- 
proached the  bar  were  picked  up  by  other  tugs 
and  pilots.  These  pilots  sounded  the  bar  daily, 
and  were  familiar  with  every  spot  in  it,  with  the 
shifting  of  the  current  due  to  wind  and  tide  and 
flood,  with  the  accompanying  changes  in  the 
bottom,  and  with  every  slightest  sign  of  the 
moving  of  the  channel.  One  of  them,  put  in 
charge  of  a  big  clipper  drawing  two  feet  more 
than  the  channel  held,  would  charge  full  speed 
at  what  he  had  determined  was  the  "softest" 
spot.  If  good  luck  favored  him  he  would  find  a 

109 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

yielding  bottom  through  which  the  thin  keel  of 
the  ship  would  plough  with  ease,  aided  and  borne 
on  by  the  steady  current.  But  if  some  mischance 
befell  he  would  find  hard  sand,  through  which  he 
might  be  able  to  go  with  a  single  tide,  or  need 
two  or  three  tides,  or,  as  happened  in  at  least  one 
case,  spend  three  months  or  more  in  moving  the 
ship  across  the  narrow  strip  into  deep  water. 

For  a  time,  when  there  was  keen  towboat  and 
pilot  competition,  steamboat  captains  would  con- 
tract to  pull  a  vessel  across  the  bar,  and  must 
therefore  stick  to  it  day  after  day  until  she  was 
across.  Later,  however,  came  a  period  of  con- 
solidation, the  formation  of  the  Towboat  Com- 
pany, and  the  establishment  of  a  tremendously 
high  towage  rate  per  hour.  Under  this  new  rule, 
not  only  was  a  vessel  compelled  to  pay  for  each 
hour  she  was  towed,  but  additional  for  each  boat 
that  pulled  her.  Stranding  for  a  day  or  two  be- 
came very  expensive.  In  spite  of  the  enormously 
high  freights  on  cotton,  ships  sought  other  ports, 
and  those  which  had  to  use  the  Mississippi  often 
attempted  the  bar  without  towing. 

To  meet  this  last  resort,  the  Towboat  Company 
110 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

established  a  rule  that  no  boat  which  attempted 
to  go  through  without  a  tug,  and  stuck,  should 
thereafter  be  helped  off  the  bar  by  a  steam  tow- 
boat;  and  as  a  natural  result  of  this  rule,  there 
began  to  occur  frequent  blockades  of  commerce, 
occasioned  by  some  rash  ship  sticking  in  the  best 
channel  and  holding  every  other  boat  up  till  she 
worked  herself  free. 

Ships  bound  out  often  were  able  to  work  through 
what  seemed  impassable  mud  barriers,  aided  by 
the  current  which,  flowing  along  their  sides,  chan- 
neled a  way  for  them.  Such  an  adventure  befell 
in  1837,  and  is  described  in  a  letter  from  John 
Kershaw,  Jr.,  to  Samuel  J.  Peters,  then  president 
of  the  New  Orleans  Chamber  of  Commerce: — 

"A  ship  drawing  seventeen  and  one  half  feet 
forward  and  aft  struck  the  bar  of  Southwest  Pass 
in  the  true  channel  way;  with  the  aid  of  her  sails, 
kedge  anchors,  etc.,  she  gradually  prized  ahead, 
and  on  the  fourth  day,  to  the  consternation  of 
those  on  board,  it  was  found,  she  had  only  eight 
feet  of  water  under  her  bow,  whilst  she  had  eight- 
een under  her  counter;  however,  by  persevering 
in  kedging,  the  use  of  her  sails,  and  with  the 

111 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

aid  of  the  current,  she  finally,  on  or  about  the 
twelfth  day,  carried  before  her  this  mass  of  mud, 
and  drifted  into  deep  water." 

Notwithstanding  the  handicap  which  such  ad- 
ventures placed  upon  the  commerce  of  New  Or- 
leans, the  presence  of  cotton  there,  brought  down 
in  quantities  by  river  steamboats,  tempted  vessels 
to  risk  the  Pass.  In  February,  1859,  when  the  trade 
of  the  city,  so  soon  to  be  annihilated  by  the  war, 
was  at  zenith,  the  export  merchandise  held  up  by 
grounding  on  the  Southwest  Pass  bar  was  worth 
$5,367,339,  including  72,000  bales  of  cotton, 
and  not  counting  the  value  of  the  hulls;  while  im- 
port goods  detained  at  the  same  time  were  worth 
$2,000,000.  In  the  succeeding  month  there  were 
thirty-five  vessels  inside  trying  to  go  out,  and  sev- 
enteen outside  waiting  to  come  in,  while  three, 
stuck  in  the  fairway,  blocked  the  channel.  In 
the  years  from  1872-77  more  than  four  hundred 
vessels  were  grounded  there,  and  lost  a  total  of 
almost  a  year  and  a  half, — to  be  exact,  12,467 
hours.1 

"If  you  will  come  to  New  Orleans  and  go  to  the 

1  E.  L.  Corthell,  The  Jetties. 

112 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

mouth  of  the  'river/"  said  General  Bussey  of  that 
city,  to  a  congressional  convention  in  St.  Louis  in 
1873, "  I  will  show  you  a  vessel  drawing  but  eight- 
een feet  of  water  which  has  been  lying  there  for 
the  last  three  weeks,  with  corn  on  board  worth 
forty-two  to  forty-five  cents  in  currency,  and 
then  you  will  know  why  it  is  the  farmers  of  Iowa, 
Illinois,  and  Missouri  are  impoverished  and  with- 
out money  to  pay  their  taxes." 

"Two  years  ago,"  said  John  H,  Kennard  of 
Louisiana,  following  him,  "I  left  New  Orleans 
with  a  depth  of  water  on  the  bar  exceeding  twenty 
feet,  and,  during  the  sitting  of  the  convention 
that  week  I  went  to  attend,  a  single  storm  filled 
up  the  passage  four  feet  in  a  night,  leaving  but 
sixteen  feet  and  a  fraction. 

"  Only  ten  days  ago,  by  order  of  the  Secretary 
of  War,  I  with  a  number  of  other  gentlemen  of 
New  Orleans  spent  three  days  and  three  nights 
making  a  critical  survey  of  this  very  ground. 
When  we  arrived  at  Southwest  Pass  there  were 
lying  thirty  odd  of  the  largest  class  of  ships,  re- 
presenting almost  every  country  of  Europe,  among 
which  were  some  six  or  seven  fine  steamers.  I  con- 

113 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

versed  with  captains  of  almost  all.  At  the  lowest 
calculation  there  were  then  floating  in  the  mouth 
of  that  bar  over  $8,000,000  worth  of  property. 

"We  have  a  powerful  corporation,"  he  con- 
tinued, speaking  bitterly,  "  the  Towboat  Associa- 
tion, and  they  do  not  hold  fasting  and  prayer 
when  they  hear  a  ship  has  stuck  on  the  bar.  They 
charge  an  enormous  sum  per  ton  for  bringing 
these  boats  from  the  mouth  to  New  Orleans,  and 
in  addition  when  these  vessels  get,  as  we  saw 
those  I  spoke  of,  on  the  bar,  they  charge  only 
$100  an  hour  for  each  boat  that  pulls  -at  it,  — 
and  I  am  told  they  are  very  particular  not  to 
put  too  many  on  to  begin  with.  In  this  case  the 
steamship  Bienville,  running  without  a  pilot, 
began  the  blockade,  and  when  they  do  this  tow- 
boats  will  not  help  them." 

Next  only  to  the  Civil  War,  no  other  single 
influence  had  more  effect  in  shaping  the  devel- 
opment of  the  transportation  routes  of  the  inte- 
rior of  America  than  this  mass  of  mud  across  the 
mouth  of  the  Mississippi.  Had  the  channel  into 
the  Gulf  deepened  progressively  as  the  depths  of 
ocean  vessels  increased,  the  interior  states  would 

114 


THE  KIVER  MOUTH 

have  found  this,  their  natural  outlet  to  the  sea, 
as  sufficient  for  them  in  1880  as  it  was  in  1830. 
The  railways  as  they  came  would  have  followed 
the  main  line  of  traffic,  to  New  Orleans,  or  would 
have  run  east  and  west  from  the  river  as  feeders ; 
and  the  people  of  a  prosperous  valley  would  have 
demanded  that  the  money  which  was  really  spent 
by  the  government  on  the  construction  of  rail- 
ways to  bear  their  freights  to  the  coast,  should 
be  spent  on  the  development  of  these  natural 
carriers  for  the  same  purpose.  The  traffic  which 
would  have  resulted  would  have  been  north  and 
south,  its  natural  direction,  rather  than  east  and 
west.  The  depot  for  receiving  imports  and  dis- 
tributing them  through  the  valley  would  not  have 
been  separated  from  the  consumers  by  a  moun- 
tain range ;  and  the  Eastern  States,  and  especially 
New  York,  would  never  have  attained  that  grasp 
on  the  business  of  the  country  which  its  rail- 
way power  has  given  it.  No  corporation  would 
have  been  able,  as  have  certain  railway  interests 
in  recent  years,  to  monopolize  the  way  to  the  sea 
by  locking  up  the  rail  entrances  to  Manhattan, 
to  Boston,  to  Philadelphia,  and  all  the  north  east- 

115 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

era  tide-water.  On  the  contrary,  the  very  move- 
ment of  cotton  must  have  been  more  to  the  north 
via  the  lakes,  to  return  value  for  grain ;  and  the 
manufacturing  centres  of  the  upper  valley  must 
have  found,  that  much  the  earlier,  their  eventual 
outlet  through  New  Orleans  to  the  Caribbean.  All 
this  must  have  been,  and  was  not ;  for  before  the 
Mississippi  was  open  to  the  sea,  in  1877,  the  fed- 
eral government  had  already  given  two  hundred 
million  acres  of  the  public  lands,  and,  in  bonds 
and  interest,  $90,000,000  of  public  funds,  to  aid 
the  construction  of  privately  owned  railroads  to 
do  the  work  that  the  public-owned  rivers  should 
have  done. 

This  was  not  owing  to  sluggishness  on  the  part 
of  New  Orleans  or  the  West  in  making  known 
their  needs.  Almost  from  the  first  day  of  Ameri- 
can occupancy  there  had  been  foreseen  the  coming 
of  the  day  when  the  channel  would  not  suffice. 
Jetties  were  discussed  and  recommended  by  New 
Orleans  business  men  as  early  as  1837.  Later  the 
plan  of  constructing  a  canal  which  would  allow 
ships  to  come  near  the  city  without  encountering 
the  swift  river  current — a  severe  obstacle  to  sail- 

116 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

ing  vessels — became  a  favorite  one,  and  the  many 
bayous  of  lower  Louisiana  lent  it  attractiveness. 
The  route  through  Lake  Pontchartrain  was  only 
sufficient  for  small  schooners,  such  as  use  it  to- 
day ;  but  there  were  other  available  routes,  both 
east  and  west  of  the  Delta. 

Of  these  the  favorite  from  the  first  was  one  by 
way  of  Breton  Sound,  connecting  with  the  Missis- 
sippi by  a  canal  near  Fort  St.  Philip,  seventy 
miles  below  New  Orleans.  Very  few  in  the  Cres- 
cent City,  even  as  late  as  1870,  believed  that  the 
Mississippi's  mouth  could  be  kept  clear;  and  this 
other  route,  avoiding  the  Passes  and  cutting  off 
thirty  miles  or  more  of  the  river  approach  to  the 
city,  stood  well  in  popular  favor.  As  early  as  1832 
Major  Boisson,  a  distinguished  engineer  of  New 
Orleans,  made  a  detailed  survey  over  the  route, 
and  estimated  that  a  channel  sufficient  for  all  that 
seemed  apt  to  come  that  way  could  be  constructed 
for  $5,000,000.  A  united  demand  was  made  for 
this  sum  on  Congress  by  the  western,  or  rather 
valley,  members,  but  it  was  finally  adjudged  too 
costly  and  was  not  undertaken. 

When,  in  1851,  Major  Humphreys  began  his 
117 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

survey  of  the  river,  he  also  turned  his  attention 
to  this  project  and  conceived  a  liking  for  it,  which 
two  decades  later  led  him,  as  Chief  of  the  Corps 
of  Engineers  of  the  War  Department,  to  one  of 
the  bitterest  contests  in  river  history.  Still  later, 
when,  the  war  being  over  and  the  valley  slowly 
recovering  from  the  loss  of  trade,  Congress  saw 
fit  to  listen  to  the  demand  for  a  navigable  outlet, 
the  route  was  even  more  carefully  surveyed  by  a 
government  party,  and  a  cost  of  about  ten  million 
dollars  was  estimated  for  the  proposed  canal. 

The  project  in  outline  was  to  cut  through  the 
river  bank  at  Fort  St.  Philip,  and  thence  directly 
through  the  soft  alluvion  to  the  Sound,  a  distance 
of  four  miles.  This  cut  was  to  be  about  twenty- 
seven  feet  deep  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  wide, 
and  was  to  have  entrance  from  the  river  through 
a  massive  stone  lock  large  enough  for  the  largest 
ships,  and  seven  feet  high,  enough  at  that  point 
to  be  above  the  highest  floods  of  the  Mississippi. 
The  canal  was  to  be  flanked  with  levees,  and 
protected  from  the  Gulf  by  guard  gates,  and  at 
its  sea  end  would  be  extended  by  dredging  twelve 
miles  or  more  to  deep  water.  There  was  then, 

118 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

and  there  is  now,  no  doubt  that  such  a  canal,  if  it 
could  be  maintained,  would  be  the  shorter  and 
easier  route  for  vessels  between  the  sea  and  New 
Orleans.  It  would  have,  however,  certain  difficul- 
ties. Of  these  the  first  was  the  unstable  nature 
of  the  soil,  which  would  possibly  not  support  the 
lock.  The  second  was  the  habit  of  the  river  of 
depositing  silt  in  every  eddy,  so  that  unavoid- 
ably the  entrance  to  the  lock  would  require  con- 
stant dredging  to  keep  clear,  as  would  the  lock 
and  canal  themselves.  And  the  canal  would  be 
rendered  temporarily  useless  by  any  wind  which 
raised  the  level  of  the  Gulf  above  the  river. 
The  freaky  character  of  the  river  was  a  con- 
stant objection,  for,  though  it  seldom  disturbs  its 
banks  so  near  its  mouth,  it  might  at  any  day 
swallow  the  lock  and  all,  and  having  thus  cut 
away  the  obstacle  might  find  the  thirty-foot  chan- 
nel to  Breton  Sound  an  easy  way  of  going  into 
the  Gulf.  This  last  was  the  real  objection  which 
gave  them  halt,  for  the  people  of  the  valley  were 
too  familiar  with  river  habits  to  doubt  that  it 
could,  if  it  took  the  notion,  cut  up  all  manner  of 
tricks  with  any  stone  lock  that  could  be  built. 

119 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

Nevertheless,  General  Humphreys  continued 
to  urge,  and  to  he  supported  in  urging  by  nearly 
all  New  Orleans,  the  opening  of  this  canal.  In 
common  with  other  army  engineers  he  had  studied 
the  jetty  systems  used  abroad,  and  in  particular 
that  of  the  Sulina  mouth  of  the  Danube,  the 
stream  which,  in  sediment  borne,  in  current,  in 
mouth,  most  nearly  of  all  in  Europe  resembled 
the  Mississippi.  At  the  mouth  of  the  Sulina  par- 
allel piers  of  masonry  had  been  extended  through 
the  bar  to  deep  water.  The  current  contracted 
in  these  had  scoured  its  bed  to  navigable  depth, 
and  most  of  the  silt  thereafter  carried  out  was 
swept  away  by  a  cross  current  in  the  sea. 

In  his  investigation  of  the  Mississippi  Hum- 
phreys had  been  led  to  believe  that  there  was 
carried  out  to  sea  by  it,  not  only  the  mass  of 
material  which  it  holds  in  suspension,  but  also  a 
great  amount  of  gravel  and  coarse  matter  which 
is  rolled  along  the  bottom.  This  bottom  material, 
he  believed,  was  dropped  over  the  edge  of  the 
bar  in  such  a  quantity  that  it  would  extend  the 
bar  out  three  hundred  feet  or  so  each  year.  He 
believed  that  the  river,  flowing  out  upon  a  bed 

120 


THE  RIVER   MOUTH 

of  salt  water  beyond  the  bar,  left  under  itself  a 
"  dead  angle  "  of  salt  water,  in  which  there  was 
no  current  either  way,  and  into  this  not  only  the 
rolled  matter  but  the  sediment  would  instantly 
drop  and  accumulate,  if  it  were  not  allowed  to 
drop  on  the  bar  itself.  On  this  account  he  be- 
lieved the  jetties  would  require  millions  in  exten- 
sion each  year,  and  would  never  be  satisfactory, 
even  if  they  could  be  constructed  and  maintained, 
which  he  did  not  admit,  or  could  scour  a  channel, 
which  he  denied. 

To  confute  these  theories  held  by  General 
Humphreys,  came  forward  James  Buchanan  Eads, 
the  man  of  all  men  most  likely  to  stir  up  opposi- 
tion in  an  army  engineer.  In  the  first  place  he  was 
not  only  a  civilian,  he  was  not  even  a  schooled 
man,  having  learned  what  he  knew  from  books 
borrowed  in  boyhood  from  his  employer,  and 
later  bought  as  he  needed  them  from  his  earn- 
ings. He  had  constructed  at  St.  Louis  a  bridge 
that  older  engineers  had  said  could  not  be  built, 
by  methods  which  they  had  asserted  would  not 
work.  He  was  a  daring,  clear-headed,  practical 
man  of  large  experience  in  engineering  work, 

121 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

a  pioneer  adventurer  by  nature,  whose  enter- 
prise led  him  into  many  lands,  and  who  had  the 
courage  to  attempt  of  his  own  initiative  what- 
ever, regardless  of  precedent,  practical  sense  told 
him  could  be  done.  He  had  spent  almost  a  life- 
time on  the  river,  and  had  walked  in  his  diving 
bell  over  nearly  every  foot  of  the  bed  from 
Vicksburg  to  St.  Louis,  examining  and  salving 
wrecks.  He  had  devoted  himself  to  the  subject 
of  erosion,  and  had  determined  to  his  own  sat- 
isfaction that  the  power  of  a  river  to  bear  sed- 
iment in  suspension  was  a  function  of  the  cur- 
rent, and  varied  somewhat  with  the  depth.  From 
all  his  studies  and  from  his  knowledge  of  the 
river,  Eads  believed  that  jetties  could  and  should 
be  built.  He  pointed  out  that  the  canal,  if  con- 
structed, would  be  soon  outgrown,  that  it  would 
require  slow  passage,  and  that  when  ships  became 
numerous  it  would  perhaps  detain  them  hours  or 
days,  waiting  their  turn  through.  A  slight  acci- 
dent to  the  gate  would  put  it  out  of  commission. 
On  the  other  hand,  once  open  a  pass  to  deep 
navigation,  and  every  vessel  could  come  through 
at  full  speed,  without  delay.  It  could  be  done, 

122 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

he  said,  and  if  done  would  be  the  only  satisfac- 
tory solution. 

Accordingly,  in  February,  1874,  Mr.  Eads 
made  a  formal  proposition  to  Congress  by  the 
terms  of  which  he  agreed,  if  permitted,  to  open 
Southwest  Pass  to  navigation  at  his  own  risk,  to 
be  paid  only  when  he  had  succeeded  in  accom- 
plishing this  so-called  impossible  feat.  He  guar- 
anteed to  establish  a  channel  twenty-eight  feet 
deep  through  Southwest  Pass  into  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  for  ten  million  dollars.  Of  this  sum  he 
was  to  be  paid  the  first  $1,000,000  when  he  had 
deepened  the  way  through  the  bar  to  twenty  feet, 
and  an  additional  $1,000,000  for  each  additional 
two  feet,  until  when  he  had  secured  a  twenty-eight- 
foot  channel  he  would  have  received  $5,000,000. 
The  remaining  $5,000,000  was  to  be  withheld 
and  paid  to  him  in  annual  installments  of 
$500,000,  to  guarantee  the  maintenance  of  the 
full  channel  depth  for  ten  years. 

No  fairer  proposition  was  ever  made  to  our 
government  than  this.  That  it  was  made  by  Cap- 
tain Eads  out  of  love  for  the  river  itself,  and  for 
the  country  which  demanded  the  outlet,  rather 

123 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

than  from  hope  of  great  profit,  there  can  be  no 
doubt;  for  the  estimate  of  cost  of  the  Southwest 
Pass  jetties,  presented  to  Congress  by  a  board 
of  engineers  convened  for  that  purpose,  was 
$16,000,000.  Nevertheless,  Eads's  perfectly  safe 
offer  called  forth  immediate  and  most  bitter  oppo- 
sition. 

To  understand  this,  and  the  subsequent  fate 
of  the  Eads  plans,  one  must  have  a  comprehen- 
sive realization  of  the  situation  in  New  Orleans 
at  that  time. 

In  the  first  place  river  traffic,  which  had  reached 
its  greatest  prosperity  just  at  the  opening  of  the 
war,  at  a  time  when  Western  railway  building 
was  in  its  infancy,  sprang  to  life  again  in  1865, 
to  find  that  the  five  intervening  years  had  seen 
railways  and  the  railway  spirit  advance  with  re- 
markable speed,  while  the  river  had  been  allowed 
to  go  to  the  dogs.  There  had  never  been  much 
done  by  the  federal  government  to  improve  the 
channel.  Snags  had  now  accumulated  unchecked 
for  years,  the  bars  had  shoaled,  the  levees  were 
gone,  the  banks  were  untended,  the  river  was  a 
chaos.  Navigation  under  the  circumstances  was 

124 


THE   RIVER  MOUTH 

perilous  and  costly.  At  the  same  time  the  West- 
ern country  was  filling  up  with  enormous  rapidity, 
the  crops  to  be  moved  were  every  year  becoming 
heavier,  and  the  demand  for  an  outlet  to  the  sea- 
board louder  and  louder.  Kiver  boats  were  haul- 
ing grain  for  export  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
actual  cost,  yet  seeing  more  and  more  of  it  go 
eastward  by  rail,  because  the  big  steamships  run- 
ning out  of  New  York  could  carry  it  to  Liver- 
pool so  much  more  cheaply  than  those  which 
struggled  through  the  bar  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi.  The  typical  river-man  of  those  days 
—  and  of  to-day  —  is  no  great  believer  in  en- 
gineering control  of  the  channel.  "  Take  out  the 
snags  and  dredge  it  on  the  bars,"  he  says,  "  and 
we  will  get  along  as  well  as  we  can.  You  can't 
control  the  Mississippi." 

That  was  his  view  with  regard  to  the  part  of 
the  river  on  which  he  sailed,  and  it  was  his  view 
in  the  matter  of  the  Passes.  "  You  can't  control 
them,"  river-men  almost  unanimously  asserted. 
But  the  outlet  to  the  sea  must  be  opened,  so  that 
by  reducing  the  ocean  freights  to  a  parity  with 
those  from  New  York  the  river  could  claim  its 

125 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

trade.  An  outlet  for  the  deepest  ships  there  must 
be.  But  as  it  was  impossible  to  control  the  Missis- 
sippi at  its  mouth,  this  outlet  must  be  a  ship 
canal,  open  at  all  times  and  free  from  current. 
So  tremendous  was  the  feeling  on  this  point,  that, 
when  there  seemed  likelihood  of  the  Eads  pro- 
posal being  accepted,  the  following  extraordinary 
appeal  was  sent  from  New  Orleans  to  Congress  : 1 

"  Would  you,  can  you,  honorable  Senators,  at 
such  a  moment,  contemplate  or  tolerate  the  half- 
insane  proposition  of  strangers,  who  can  know 
nothing  of  the  habits  of  our  inexorable  enemy, 
to  dam  up  his  waters  at  the  mouth  by  jetties  or 
wing-dams,  that  must  inevitably  send  back  the 
flood  waters  like  a  tide  to  the  very  city  of  New 
Orleans,  or  beyond,  and  complete  the  impending 
destruction?  Of  this  result  we  assure  you,  with 
an  earnestness  ground  into  us  by  a  lifelong  ex- 
perience and  observation,  and  by  all  the  lights 
that  science  and  professional  investigation  are 
capable  of  lending  us.  Do  not,  we  pray,  permit 
us  to  be  destroyed,  and  that  without  remedy." 

Under  such  pressure  the  Eads  bill,  reported 

1  E.  L.  Corthell,  The  Jetties. 

126 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

favorably  by  committee,  was  set  aside  in  the 
House,  and  a  bill  authorizing  the  immediate  ap- 
propriation of  $8,000,000  to  begin  the  St.  Philip 
Canal  was  passed  instead.  But  in  the  Senate  the 
straightforward  presentation  of  the  case  by  Cap- 
tain Eads  had  more  effect,  and  the  whole  matter 
was  laid  over  until  a  specially  appointed  commit- 
tee could  report.  This  commission,  consisting  of 
seven  engineers,  three  from  the  army,  three  from 
civil  life,  and  one  from  the  Coast  Survey,  visited 
all  the  principal  river  jetties  of  Europe,  and  went 
thoroughly  into  that  subject  as  well  as  making 
an  exhaustive  study  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi. It  reported  three  plans  for  solution 
(report  presented  to  Congress,  January  13, 1875). 
The  Fort  St.  Philip  Canal,  to  be  27  feet  deep, 
200  feet  wide,  and  with  a  lock  500  feet  long  and 
65  feet  wide,  would  cost  $11,514,200.  Jetties  at 
South  Pass  would  cost  $7,942,110,  and  jetties 
at  Southwest  Pass  would  cost  $16,053,124.  Of 
these  they  recommended  the  jetties  at  South 
Pass,  on  the  ground  that  they  would  cost  less, 
could  be  constructed  without  disturbing  the  ex- 
isting channel  at  Southwest  Pass,  or  otherwise 

127 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

interfering  with  navigation,  and  could  be  built 
more  quickly.  They  recommended  that,  whatever 
plan  was  adopted,  the  whole  sum  be  made  im- 
mediately available,  so  that  the  work  could  be 
pushed  forward  to  completion  as  quickly  as  pos- 
sible. 

With  the  recommendation  for  South  Pass  Mr. 
Eads  did  not  agree.  He  protested  to  Congress 
that  the  work  there  would  be  more  difficult,  be- 
cause of  the  shoal  at  the  head  of  the  Pass,  which 
would  require  work  at  that  end  as  well  as  at  the 
mouth.  Moreover,  so  little  water  went  out  there 
that  he  doubted  the  sufficiency  of  it  to  maintain 
a  thirty-foot  channel,  which  was  the  required 
depth.  It  was  certain  to  become  eventually  in- 
sufficient for  the  commerce  of  the  valley.  South- 
west Pass,  big,  abundant,  the  natural  outlet, 
appealed  to  him  as  the  only  sufficient  one.  Ac- 
cordingly he  made  a  new  proposition  to  Congress, 
that  he  would  build  the  jetties  at  Southwest  Pass 
for  $8,000,000,  and  would  maintain  them  for 
twenty  years  at  an  annual  cost  of  $150,000  (the 
commission  had  reported  that  the  annual  exten- 
sion to  keep  in  advance  of  the  bar  would  cost 

128 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

$130,000).  So  completely  had  public  sentiment 
changed  throughout  the  country  by  this  time, 
that  a  bill  embodying  the  Eads  proposition  for 
the  Southwest  Pass  went  through  the  House  with 
but  two  dissenting  votes.  When  it  came  to  the 
Senate,  however,  that  body  —  considering  that  it 
had  appointed  two  separate  commissions,  and  that 
one  had  recommended  the  Canal  and  one  the 
South  Pass  jetties  —  decided  that  if  it  ignored 
both  and  voted  for  Southwest  Pass,  and  there 
was  then  a  failure,  the  country  would  be  right- 
eously indignant.  It  accordingly  amended  the 
bill  to  refer  to  South  Pass.  Mr.  Eads  was  in- 
formed that  if  he  would  build  the  jetties  there 
for  $5,250,000,  and  maintain  them  twenty  years 
at  $100,000  a  year,  he  could  have  the  job.  And 
this  he  was  compelled  to  accept.  The  bill  was 
passed  by  the  House  on  March  3,  1875,  and  was 
immediately  signed  by  the  President.  The  bill 
was  without  doubt  the  "  safest "  ever  passed  by 
the  American  Congress.  It  provided  that  so  long 
as  he  did  not  interfere  with  traffic,  in  an  unnav- 
igable  channel,  or  delay  unnecessarily,  Captain 
Eads  might  construct  the  jetties  at  his  own  risk 

129 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

and  expense.  When  he  had  deepened  the  channel 
to  be  twenty  feet  deep  for  a  width  of  two  hun- 
dred feet,  he  should  be  paid  five  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars.  Another  two  feet  would  bring  a  like 
amount.  Two  feet  more  and  fifty  feet  wider 
should  bring  him  a  similar  sum,  and  if  maintained 
a  year,  $250,000  additional.  A  twenty-six-foot 
channel,  300  feet  wide,  would  bring  another  half 
million,  and  a  year  later,  if  maintained,  $250,000. 
A  twenty-eight-foot  channel,  300  feet  wide,  would 
be  ground  for  another  similar  payment,  and  for 
a  channel  30  by  350,  half  a  million  at  once  and 
another  half  million  at  the  end  of  a  year  of  main- 
tenance, a  total  of  $4,250,000.  Thereafter  Cap- 
tain Eads  should  maintain  the  channel  at  that  pro- 
portion by  jetties  and  auxiliary  means  for  twenty 
years,  for  which  he  was  allowed  $100,000  a  year, 
and  during  that  time  the  government  held  up  as 
guarantee  the  remainder  due  him,  $1,000,000, 
paying  him  five  per  cent  per  annum  semiannually, 
and  paying  $500,000  at  the  end  of  ten  years 
and  the  other  $500,000  at  the  end  of  the  twenty 
if  all  went  well. 

It  is,  of  course,  perfectly  evident  that  no  man 
130 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

not  absolutely  sure  of  himself  would  have  under- 
taken the  task  on  such  a  contract ;  it  is  equally 
certain  that  no  man  with  less  enthusiasm  for  the 
work  than  Eads  could  have  impressed  its  pos- 
sibility upon  others,  and  secured  the  funds  to 
finance  what  was  considered  by  many  engineers 
to  be  an  impossible  plan.  Nevertheless,  Eads  at 
once  signed  a  contract  with  the  great  firm  of 
James  Andrews  &  Company  to  begin  the  actual 
construction,  they  agreeing  to  furnish  the  neces- 
sary quarter-boats,  floating  and  fixed  plants  and 
material,  and  not  to  ask  for  the  first  payment 
until  50,000  cubic  yards  of  mat  and  10,000  cubic 
yards  of  stone  were  put  in  place.  They  would 
then  receive  half  the  agreed  price  for  that  work, 
the  rest  to  be  paid  when  Congress  had  made 
certain  payments  to  Eads.  The  firm  charged 
such  prices  for  the  risk  that  the  contract  was 
made  only  to  a  twenty-six-foot  depth  of  channel. 
To  provide  the  money  and  push  the  work,  Mr. 
Eads  organized  the  South  Pass  Jetty  Company, 
a  purely  financial  corporation,  which  agreed  to 
furnish  $200,000  as  needed,  on  which  it  required 
to  be  guaranteed  ten  per  cent  interest  and  one 

131 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

hundred  per  cent  profit.  Additional  sums  o£ 
money  as  needed  from  time  to  time  were  raised 
at  equal  or  even  more  exorbitant  rates. 

It  is  extremely  difficult  for  one  unfamiliar  with 
the  delta  country  to  picture  South  Pass,  as  it  is 
now  or  as  it  was  when  Eads  took  charge  of  it,  in 
June,  1875.  Within  ten  miles  of  the  lighthouse 
at  its  mouth  there  was  not  a  building  of  any 
sort  except  a  few  fishermen's  shanties.  Within 
one  hundred  miles  there  was  not  a  foot  of  ground 
which  was  not  at  some  time  subject  to  overflow 
from  river  or  Gulf.  Standing  in  the  top  of  the 
lighthouse  one  could  follow  to  the  northward  the 
gentle  curves  of  the  canal-like  pass,  between  its 
willow-clad  marshy  banks,  to  the  point  where  it 
merged  with  Pass  a  T Outre  and  Southwest  Pass, 
coming  in,  in  like  willow-bordered  ribbons,  from 
equal  angles  to  the  east  and  west.  It  was  a  nat- 
ural ship  canal,  and  in  its  whole  ten  miles  of 
length  was  not  a  shoal  spot,  a  sharp  turn,  a  dan- 
gerous bank,  nor  a  snag.1 

Small  as  it  appeared  in  comparison  with  the 
larger  passes,  each  of  which  has  five  times  its 

1  E.  L.  Corthell,  The  Jetties. 
132 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

volume  o£  water,  it  would  anywhere  else  be  con- 
sidered a  magnificent  river.  The  average  width 
of  the  Pass,  which  Eads  hoped  to  preserve,  was 
about  700  feet,  and  the  depth,  except  at  the 
ends,  nowhere  less  than  30  feet ;  but  as  he  be- 
lieved the  erosive  action  of  the  tides  would  be 
considerable,  he  planned  to  put  the  jetties  a 
thousand  feet  apart.  Halfway  its  length  the  right 
bank  of  the  Pass  was  broken  by  the  opening  of 
Grand  Bayou,  by  which  a  fifth  of  its  water  was 
discharged  into  a  bay  to  the  west  of  the  Pass.  In 
its  centuries  of  formation  and  flowing  South  Pass 
had,  in  most  of  its  length,  exactly  shaped  its  cross 
section  for  the  amount  of  water  it  carried.  This 
cross  section  permitted  it  to  bear  to  its  mouth  the 
burden  of  silt  which  was  its  share.  At  the  end 
of  its  banks,  however,  it  met  a  littoral  current 
setting  toward  the  west,  in  conflict  with  which, 
and  in  consequence  of  its  arrival  at  sea  level,  it 
dropped  its  burden ;  which,  by  the  current  and 
the  waves  and  winds,  was  piled  up  about  its 
mouth,  more  on  the  right  than  on  the  left  of  it. 
This  accumulating  mass  formed  a  bar  over  which 
the  river  spread  out,  and  year  by  year  more  and 

133 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

more  of  the  bar  was  raised  above  water  by  the 
addition  of  silt.  These  parts  thus  raised  were  at 
the  sides  of  the  stream,  and  formed  natural  ex- 
tensions of  the  Pass,  continuing  to  encroach  until 
they  so  narrowed  the  pass  between  them  as  to 
form  a  cross  section  equal  to  that  above.  When 
that  stage  was  reached,  the  current  had  eroded 
the  bar  between  these  two  extensions  (the  actions 
were  simultaneous)  to  its  full  depth,  making  a 
complete  extension  of  the  canal,  and,  by  carrying 
this  eroded  material  seaward,  continually  shoving 
the  bar  farther  to  sea.  This  was,  in  fact,  the 
process  of  delta  building  which  had  been  going 
on  for  countless  centuries,  the  river  keeping  just 
ahead  of  it  a  bar,  of  which  it  made  more  land 
and  through  which  as  it  did  so  it  extended  its 
length.  The  plan  of  Major  Eads,  and  practically 
the  whole  plan,  was  to  anticipate  part  of  the 
action  of  the  river,  and  make  the  river  do  the 
rest.  He  would  build  artificial  banks,  beginning 
where  those  of  the  Pass  had  reached  stability 
and  carrying  them  out  to  the  far  edge  of  the 
bar;  these  would  so  narrow  the  river  that  it 
would  forthwith  scour  a  thirty-foot  channel 

134 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

through  the  bar.  Even  most  of  his  opponents 
admitted  the  feasibility  of  this,  but  they  asserted 
that  the  material  so  eroded,  with  what  was  regu- 
larly brought  down  by  the  stream,  would  build 
the  bar  up  at  the  seaward  end  faster  than  the 
jetties  could  be  extended ;  while  Eads  maintained 
that  the  littoral  current  would  move  this  away 
fast  enough  to  keep  the  channel  clear  with  a 
minimum  of  dredging  and  extension. 

The  Jetties,  or  artificial  banks,  with  which  he 
planned  to  do  the  work,  were  to  a  certain  extent 
modeled  after  those  at  the  Sulina  Pass  of  the 
Danube,  but  were  much  modified  to  meet  the 
requirements  of  the  situation.  They  were  to  be  of 
the  simplest  construction.  Mattresses  of  willow  .  / 
brush,  gathered  from  the  abundant  thickets  along 
the  Pass,  Grand  Bayou,  and  the  river,  were  to  be 
woven  on  ways  built  at  the  spot,  towed  into  the 
line  surveyed  for  the  walls,  and  sunk  by  rubble 
stone.  Over  these  more  mats  would  be  sunk,  as 
the  whole  settled  into  the  silt,  until  a  stable  foun- 
dation had  been  made  which  held  its  crest  above 
water  line ;  and  on  this  a  concrete  or  stone  wall 
would  be  established.  The  east  jetty,  as  surveyed, 

135 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

extended  from  the  land's  end  1200  feet  south- 
easterly, then  deflected  to  the  west,  one  foot  in 
23  for  2800  feet,  then  one  foot  in  16  for  4100 
feet.  There  a  curve  commenced,  still  to  the  west- 
erly, with  a  radius  of  11,720  feet  in  chords  of  six 
hundred  feet  to  make  a  total  length  of  12,100 
feet,  or  nearly  2^  miles.  The  land  on  the  west 
side  of  the  Pass  extended  farther  seaward,  and 
the  jetty  on  that  side,  paralleling  the  curved  part 
of  the  east  jetty,  was  only  about  two  thirds  as 
long. 

Most  of  the  willows  for  the  mats  were  brought 
from  the  bayous  opening  from  the  "  Jump " 
channel  above  Head  of  the  Passes.  The  mats 
themselves  were  woven  on  launching  ways  erected 
for  the  purpose  on  the  east  shore  of  the  Pass 
near  its  end.  Each  mat  was  100  feet  long,  and 
the  lowest  in  the  foundation  were  40  feet  wide. 
These  were  founded  upon  a  framing  of  yellow- 
pine  timber,  2.5  by  6-inch  scantlings,  spliced  to 
full  length,  running  lengthwise  the  mat  and 
spaced  five  feet  between  centres.  Hickory  pins 
were  wedged  and  trenailed  into  these  strips  so  as 
to  stand  upright  when  in  weaving  position.  The 

136 


PEGGING  AND  FINISHING  A  MAT 


MAKING  A  JETTY  FOUNDATION  MATTRESS 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

willow  brush,  fifteen  to  thirty  feet  in  length,  was 
then  brought  and  laid  upon  these  strips  at  right 
angles  with  them,  the  brushy  tops  overhanging 
the  frame  about  three  feet.  This  layer  was  made 
about  sixteen  inches  deep,  and  then  a  second 
layer  at  right  angles  put  over  it,  three  inches 
above  the  tops  of  the  pins.  Cross  strips  similar  to 
those  running  longitudinally  in  the  bottom  were 
then  set  over  the  brush,  with  holes  bored  for  the 
hickory  pins,  and  forced  down  upon  them  and  the 
pins  wedged  in  place.  The  whole  was  strength- 
ened by  longitudinal  bracing.  At  the  corners  of 
exposed  mats  additional  iron  screwbolts  were  used 
as  well  as  pins.  The  whole  .was  then  launched. 
Mooring  piles  marked  the  line  of  the  jetty,  and 
the  end  of  the  last  sunk  mat  was  also  marked. 
The  new  one  was  towed  into  place  and  sunk  in  the 
manner  described  in  the  chapter  on  bank  revet- 
ment, by  throwing  on  stone  from  a  barge.  It  was 
possible  to  make  a  mattress  100  by  35  by  2  feet 
in  two  hours.  The  method  and  type  of  making 
were  the  invention  of  Colonel  Andrews  and  Mr. 
Eads,  and  were  patented  by  them.  A  great  part 
of  the  credit  of  the  jetties  is  due  to  this  type ; 

137 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

for  this  simplicity  and  ease  and  cheapness  of  con- 
struction made  possible  the  carrying  out  of  the 
great  contract. 

It  is  not  necessary  in  a  work  of  this  character 
to  go  into  a  full  technical  description  of  the  pro- 
gress of  this  work.  At  the  end  of  the  first  year 
the  jetty  walls  were  simply  uncompressed  walls  of 
willow  mattresses,  but  when  the  river  rose  in 
January,  1876,  the  flood,  finding  its  way  to  the 
sea  obstructed,  attacked  the  bar  with  great  vigor, 
deepening  the  centre  line  of  channel  most  of  the 
way  to  twenty  feet  or  more,  and  at  the  outer  end, 
where  there  had  been  but  nine  feet  of  water, 
diminished  in  October,  1875,  to  7.5  feet,  it  scoured 
to  seventeen  feet. 

So  rapidly  was  this  work  accomplished  that 
Mr.  Eads  was  able  to  celebrate  the  first  anniver- 
sary of  the  passing  of  his  enabling  act  by  send- 
ing a  ship  to  sea  through  the  new  channel.  On 
March  4,  1876,  the  Mattie  Atwood,  a  three- 
masted  schooner  carrying  2150  bales  of  cotton 
for  Revel,  Russia,  went  to  sea  through  South 
Pass,  drawing  13J  feet  of  water. 

A  few  weeks  later  Captain  E.  V.  Gager  and 
138 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

Pilot  Richard  Francis  brought  in  through  the 
new  channel,  without  touching  bottom,  the  Crom- 
well line  passenger  steamer  Hudson,  from  New 
York,  passing  in  at  low  tide  on  a  draft  of  four- 
teen feet,  seven  inches.  From  that  time  on,  though 
there  were  difficulties,  the  progress  of  the  build- 
ing was  looked  upon  with  confidence  by  shipping 
interests. 

The  willow  walls  which  were  erected  as  pro- 
longations of  the  Pass  settled  gradually  into  the 
soft  bottom,  and  were  covered  by  more  mattresses, 
and  at  last  upon  the  top  of  all  a  great  wall  of 
concrete  blocks  was  built,  the  usual  formula  being 
3  parts  cement,  3  parts  sand,  3  parts  gravel,  15 
parts  broken  stone,  the  heaviest  single  blocks 
weighing  over  260  tons.  The  concrete  work  on 
the  east  jetty  extended  about  one  mile,  and  that 
on  the  west  half  a  mile,  at  the  sea  end.  The  mats 
back  of  them  were  compressed  with  rubble  stone. 
While  this  work  was  being  carried  on  at  the 
mouth  of  South  Pass  the  engineers  and  contract- 
ors had  been  equally  busy  at  the  head  of  the 
Pass  and  at  Grand  Bayou.  The  latter  was  closed 
\l  by  an  ingenious  dam,  composed  of  a  framing  of 

139 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

stout  piling  and  heavy  timbers,  against  which 
were  placed  willow  mattresses  not  unlike  those 
used  for  the  foundation  of  the  jetties.  These 
were,  however,  woven  loosely,  framed  stoutly, 
and  made  in  small  sections.  Floated  to  the  site 
of  the  dam,  one  edge  of  a  mat  was  brought  to 
the  edge  of  the  piling,  and  was  raised  a  few  feet 
above  water  level  by  a  pile-driver.  The  current 
immediately  caught  the  other  edge  and  drew  it 
down  against  the  piles  or  against  the  bottom,  and 
\J  held  it  there.  To  prevent  scour  the  bottom  was 
floored  with  mats  and  riprap.  The  current  ob- 
structed in  passing  through  the  willow  dam 
deposited  silt,  and  in  the  course  of  time  entirely 
closed  the  channel.  Similar  work  was  adopted 
at  Head  of  the  Passes.  As  a  precautionary 
measure,  to  prevent  the  narrowing  of  South  Pass 
from  diverting  water  to  the  other  Passes,  a  mat- 
tress sill  was  laid  across  the  mouth  of  Southwest 
Pass,  from  shore  to  shore,  to  prevent  enlargement, 
and  a  similar  mattress  across  the  entrance  to  Pass 
a  TOutre.  But  the  greatest  work  at  the  Head 
of  the  Pass  was  the  construction  of  contraction 
dikes  and  deflecting  dams,  to  narrow  the  channel 

140 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

and  insure  the  direction  of  its  proper  flow  through 
it.  The  entrance  to  South  Pass  was  broad  and 
shoal,  with  a  small  island  directly  in  the  middle 
of  it.  In  the  deeper  approach,  on  the  southwest 
side  of  this  island,  there  was  about  fifteen  feet  of 
water  at  the  time  the  jetty  building  began.  It 
was,  of  course,  necessary  to  take  immediate  steps 
to  increase  this  depth  and  establish  an  open  chan- 
nel, to  obtain  the  benefit  of  the  jetties  themselves. 
This  was  accomplished  by  erecting  a  dike, 
called  Lighthouse  Dike,  on  the  point  between 
Southwest  and  South  Passes,  to  hold  that  point 
and  direct  the  flow,  and  then  by  creating  a  large 
work  consisting  of  a  dike  extending  straight  up- 
stream from  the  upper  end  of  the  island,  parallel 
to  and  about  1000  feet  from  Lighthouse  Dike, 
but  running  about  4000  feet  to  the  head  of  the 
obstructing  shoal;  there  it  connected  with  a  cross 
dike  called  the  "  upper  dam,"  extending  about 
1700  feet  in  an  easterly  direction  across  the  shoal 
into  the  deep  water  of  Pass  a  T Outre.  Another 
dam,  about  1700  feet  above  the  head  of  the 
island,  ran  easterly  to  connect  with  a  dike  which 
extended  from  the  shore  east  of  the  island  north- 

141 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

easterly  to  the  end  of  the  Pass  a  1'Outre  sill. 
Last  of  all,  a  dam  crossed  the  to-be-abandoned 
channel  east  of  the  island.  The  whole  thus  formed 
an  enormous  silt-gathering  obstruction  designed 
to  create  land  in  the  area  between  South  Pass  and 
Pass  a  1'Outre,  reduce  the  amount  flowing  into 
the  latter,  and  insure  both  the  flow  and  the  depth 
of  South  Pass  entrance. 

This  plan  was  in  large  measure  the  result  of  a 
financial  necessity.  The  first  plan  had  been  to 
deflect  the  water  by  the  dike  known  as  East  Dike 
to  the  channel  east  of  the  island;  but  success  by 
this  plan  was  slow  in  coming,  money  was  giving 
out,  and  Eads  had  not  yet  been  able  to  get 
through  the  War  Department  any  official  state- 
ment of  his  success  on  which  to  base  an  appeal 
for  financial  assistance.  The  only  evidence  he  had 
that  the  channel  was  improving  was  the  continual 
passing  of  the  Cromwell  steamers,  for  which  there 
was  enough  water  west  of,  but  not  east  of  the 
island.  To  continue  to  accommodate  them  was 
his  only  hope  of  safety,  and  to  do  this  it  was 
necessary  to  keep  open  the  west  channel.  On  this 
account  chiefly  the  plan  was  modified,  the  whole 

142 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

expense  of  the  East  Dike  being  by  the  new  plan 
practically  needless,  and  the  long  island  dike  was 
built  instead. 

The  dams,  erected  in  a  stiff  current,  in  a  soft 
bottom,  and  with  their  progress  interrupted  by 
high  water,  were  of  the  same  type  as  that  at 
Grand  Bayou.  Piling  and  timbering  made  a 
heavy  foundation  or  frame,  the  front  strongly 
braced  against  a  rear  row  of  piling.  Across  the 
front  of  this  frame  mats  were  stood  on  edge  as 
at  Grand  Bayou,  and  at  their  feet  other  mats  and 
heavy  stone  revetment  prevented  scour.  The  dikes 
were  of  mattress  construction,  similar  to  the  jet- 
ties, though  without  the  heavy  concrete  over- 
works necessary  at  the  sea  end.  This  work  was 
begun  in  June,  1876,  and  carried  quickly  to  com- 
pletion. In  September  of  that  year,  to  insure  the 
greatest  benefit  from  the  work  and  prevent  any 
enlargement  of  the  other  Passes,  a  dredge  was  set 
to  work  on  the  shoal  at  the  head  of  the  west 
channel,  and  an  eighteen-foot  cut  was  made.  By 
February,  1877,  there  was  a  least  depth  of  22 
feet  on  the  shoal,  and  a  twenty-foot  channel  110 
feet  wide.  The  whole  shoal  seemed  to  be  moving 

143 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

out  bodily.  By  March  7  the  twenty-two-foot 
channel  was  everywhere  200  feet  wide,  and  23.9 
feet  draft  could  be  carried  from  the  river  over 
the  shoal  into  the  Pass.  The  channel  continued  to 
develop  rapidly,  and  by  June  6,  1877,  414,400 
cubic  yards  had  been  scoured  out  of  this  shoal. 

All  of  the  earlier  work  on  the  jetties  was  done 
as  hastily  as  possible,  and  often  with  so  much 
economy  at  the  sacrifice  of  strength  as  to  cause 
serious  loss  from  the  failure  of  piling  and  of  dams. 
This  haste  was  due  to  the  necessity  for  getting 
decided  results  in  a  deepened  channel,  to  make 
certain  the  financial  side  of  the  venture.  That  it 
was  successful  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1877,  Captain  Eads  received  the  first  pay- 
ment, of  half  a  million  dollars,  for  a  channel 
through  the  Pass  twenty  feet  deep  and  two  hun- 
dred feet  wide. 

Yet  though  South  Pass  had  become  the  chief 
navigable  outlet  for  the  river,  the  progress  of  the 
Eads  partners  toward  the  fulfillment  of  their  con- 
tract was  still  balked  in  many  ways.  Official  sur- 
veys were  delayed,  and  the  money  became  so  short 
that  at  one  time  the  payrolls  were  more  than  two 

144 


THE  EADS  JETTIES,     SOUTH   PASS 


THE   BROAD   RIVER  NEAR   MEMPHIS 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

months  behind,  with  no  relief  in  sight.  Yet  the 
men  themselves  were  so  confident  of  success  that 
hardly  an  employee  left  the  work  when  the 
trouble  was  explained  to  them.  In  1878  yellow 
fever  broke  out  in  camp,  and  sent  the  force 
scurrying  in  all  directions.  Operations  were  for 
several  months  entirely  suspended,  and  some  of 
the  most  valued  men  on  the  work  were  lost 
through  this  disease.  In  spite  of  such  handicaps, 
however,  the  progress  was  fairly  steady.  To  assist 
in  scouring,  a  big  dredge  was  procured  for  the 
bar  at  the  mouth  of  the  Pass,  and  month  after 
month  saw  the  channel  there  improve.  The  most 
difficult  work  was  that  of  increasing  the  height 
of  the  jetties  by  new  mattresses,  as  they  sunk  be- 
neath the  water.  Storms  often  destroyed  many  of 
the  upper  mats,  which  were  not  yet  concreted. 

In  1877,  to  still  further  narrow  the  channel, 
transverse  wing-dams  were  set  out  from  the  jetties 
into  the  channel,  narrowing  it  to  about  650  feet. 
By  December  of  that  year  there  were  22  feet 
over  the  shoals  at  the  head  and  over  the  bar  at 
the  mouth,  both  channels  very  broad.  In  1879, 
success  being  apparently  in  view,  Congress  passed 

145 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

an  act  for  the  financial  relief  of  Mr.  Eads,  which 
permitted  the  payment  of  part  of  the  money  he 
believed  to  be  due  him,  and  he  was  enabled  to 
complete  the  works.  By  July,  1879,  there  was 
nearly  31  feet  of  water  the  entire  length  of  the 
jetty  channel,  with  a  twenty-six-foot  channel 
200  feet  wide;  and  on  July  8,  1879,  Captain 
Brown,  the  government  inspector  at  the  Pass, 
certified  to  the  War  Department  that  there  was 
a  clear  channel  of  30  feet  depth  without  regard 
to  width,  from  the  Mississippi  above  the  Passes 
to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  That  was  the  maximum 
demand  of  the  law. 

By  the  requirements  of  his  terms  of  his  contract, 
Captain  Eads  was  compelled  to  continue  in  charge 
of  South  Pass,  keeping  the  jetties  in  repair,  and 
for  twenty  years  taking  whatever  means  might 
be  necessary  to  maintain  the  thirty-foot  channel. 
This  task,  which  has  of  course  been  the  complete 
maintenance  of  the  Mississippi  mouth  almost  to 
the  present  day,  called  for  no  more  than  the 
restoration  of  jetties  damaged  by  hurricanes,  the 
occasional  replacing  of  wing-dams,  gradual  exten- 
sion at  the  ends  as  the  bar  has  advanced,  and  the 

146 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

continual  use  of  dredges  over  the  bar  to  preserve 
the  depth  beyond  the  end  of  the  piers.  For  all 
this  he  was  made  the  allowance  provided  by  law, 
which  was  continued  to  his  estate  after  his  death, 
and  on  June  6,  1900,  Congress  appropriated  the 
last  money  to  complete  the  Eads  contract: 
$500,000,  which  had  been  retained  by  the  nation 
as  a  guarantee  for  the  work,  and  on  which  the 
estate  had  been  collecting  interest ;  and  $200,000 
to  buy  the  plant  with  which  they  had  been  work- 
ing. At  the  same  time  an  annual  appropriation 
of  $100,000  to  maintain  South  Pass  channel  was 
established. 

In  the  years  of  the  Eads  control,  and  down  to 
to-day,  the  thirty-foot  channel  has  frequently 
been  briefly  interrupted ;  but  there  has  been  main- 
tained depth  enough  at  all  times  to  allow  vessels 
drawing  from  26  to  28  feet  to  enter  and  leave 
the  river,  and  those  depths  are  now  carried 
regularly  out  of  New  Orleans.  The  channel  is 
safe  and  reliable,  and  while  careful  pilotage  is 
required  in  the  whole  length  of  the  Pass,  which 
has  shoaled  in  mid  length  to  equal  the  cross 
section  of  discharge,  delays  at  the  Pass  are  un- 

147 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

known.  For  all  practical  purposes  New  Orleans 
has  had  an  unrestricted  outlet  to  the  sea. 

But  the  prophecy  of  Eads  has  been  fulfilled 
more  speedily  than  he  could  have  expected.  The 
fast  increasing  traffic  out  of  the  Mississippi,  and 
the  rapid  increase  in  draft  of  ocean  steamers,  has 
already  rendered  a  narrow  thirty-foot  channel  in- 
sufficient for  the  needs  of  the  great  port  of  the 
Centre.  For  years  before  the  Eads  charge  was 
taken  over  by  the  government,  there  was  a  de- 
mand for  a  larger  outlet.  Southwest  Pass,  which 
Eads  himself  had  selected  as  the  only  proper  out- 
let and  on  which  he  had  wished  to  try  his  hand, 
is  after  all  to  be  the  real  mouth.  The  $8,000,000 
which  we  have  paid  to  Eads  and  his  estate  repre- 
sents our  tuition  in  jetty  building  and  the  pre- 
mium we  have  paid  on  the  open  channel  for  thirty 
years.  We  might  have  saved  most  of  it  had  we 
followed  the  sensible  old  engineer  in  the  first 
place.  For  in  1899  Congress  authorized,  at  a 
cost  of  $20,000,  a  survey  to  determine  the  cost 
of  opening  Southwest  Pass  by  jetties  to  give  a 
channel  35  feet  deep  and  3000  feet  wide ;  and 
in  1902  an  appropriation  of  $750,000  and  a  con- 

148 


THE  RIVER  MOUTH 

tinuing  contract  for  $2,750,000  were  authorized 
to  enable  the  government  engineers  to  begin  their 
construction. 

These  works  were  let  out  by  contract  to  a  sin- 
gle great  firm,  for  whom  there  has  been  no  hin- 
drance, but  only  eager  cooperation.  They  have 
been  built  in  the  main  along  the  Eads  lines,  with 
his  type  of  mattress,  enlarged  but  only  slightly 
modified,  and  with  the  alternate  layers  of  stone  and 
the  concrete  crown.  The  new  jetties  are  of  great 
size,  the  foundation  mats  being  150  feet  wide. 
They  extend,  the  one  on  the  north  nearly  five 
miles,  that  on  the  south  about  six  miles  into  the 
Gulf  and  across  the  bar.  At  their  outer  extremity 
they  are  about  3000  feet  apart;  but  instead  of 
following  the  Eads  plan  of  having  them  parallel, 
they  have  been  designed  with  the  south  jetty 
beginning  at  a  distance  from  the  river,  and  ap- 
proaching it  in  funnel-like  shape,  the  triangle 
thus  formed  to  the  south  of  the  channel  being 
filled  in  by  dredging  from  the  channel.  The 
purpose  of  this  is  to  give  the  jetty  a  heavy  sup- 
port from  southeasterly  gales,  which  here  reach 
hurricane  force.  The  new  jetties  have  been  built 

149 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

with  great  speed.  Having  the  advantage  of 
Eads's  experience,  and  modern  science,  and  the 
hearty  and  active  cooperation  of  the  govern- 
ment, the  contractors  have  had  little  or  no  delay, 
and  have  had  ample  funds.  The  Southwest  Pass 
channel  will  be  opened  to  traffic  at  the  full  depth 
of  35  feet  before  this  book  is  printed. 

Southwest  Pass  is  the  natural  and  final  outlet 
of  the  Mississippi.  If  it  is  ever  necessary  to  do 
more  than  is  done  now  toward  deepening  it,  that 
can  be  accomplished  by  lessening  the  flow  in 
other  outlets.  But  the  mouth  of  this  Pass  stands 
in  deep  water,  and  is  scoured  by  a  strong  littoral 
current  setting  to  the  westward ;  there  is  no  shore 
under  the  lee  of  the  Pass  to  found  a  new  bar  or 
obstruction,  and  it  seems  not  unlikely  that  the 
present  works  will  remain  ample  for  several  score 
years  at  least,  to  provide  for  the  enormous  com- 
merce which  the  Mississippi  will  send  this  way. 
The  total  cost  of  all  the  Passes  to  the  present 
time  is  approximately  $15,500,000. 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  UPPER  MISSISSIPPI 

IT  is  upon  the  Upper  Mississippi  and  one  of  its 
principal  tributaries  that  one  finds  carried  out, 
to  the  highest  stage  America  has  yet  attained, 
development  by  the  conservation  of  the  water  sup- 
ply and  the  forests,  together  with  a  proper  appre- 
ciation of  the  water  power.  The  upper  Mississippi 
heads  in  a  level  plateau,  rock-rimmed,  and  well 
supplied  with  lakes  and  with  large  swamps.  This 
northern  half  of  Minnesota  was  originally  well 
covered  with  pine  forests,  and  enormous  areas  of 
forest  still  persist  there,  much  of  it  young  growth 
and  much  held  by  the  state  as  reserve.  The  prob- 
lems which  confront  the  engineer  there  are  to 
provide  a  larger  storage  capacity  for  the  lakes 
and  ponds,  to  drain  the  swamps  and  to  straighten 
and  deepen  the  river  between  the  numerous  falls 
and  rapids  over  which  it  plunges  between  Itasca 
and  St.  Anthony's,  in  the  first  five  hundred  miles 
of  its  course.  Below  St.  Anthony's  it  has  special 

151 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

problems  which  we  will  consider  later.  To  the 
present  time  there  has  been  no  attempt  to  develop 
navigation  above  St.  Anthony's,  though,  as  all  the 
reservoir  region  is  now  known  to  be  underlaid 
with  low  grade  iron  ore,  which  must  come  south 
to  Illinois  and  Missouri  for  smelting,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  that  channel  will  some  day  reach  a 
high  stage  of  development. 

The  development  of  the  upper  river,  and  the 
conservation  of  its  waters,  begins  at  its  extreme 
head,  in  the  establishment  of  a  perpetual  forest 
reserve  about  Lakes  Itasca,  Elk,  and  Hernando 
de  Soto,  the  latter  two  bodies  being  within  the 
rim  of  the  ultimate  source,  and  the  former  fur- 
nishing the  first  definite  stream  of  the  Missis- 
sippi. About  15,000  acres  of  primeval  pine  forest 
is  now  included  in  the  Itasca  State  Park,  the  land 
having  been  turned  over  to  the  Minnesota  gov- 
ernment. In  the  end  it  will  doubtless  be  much 
enlarged,  and  many  of  the  new  forest  reserves 
will  be  established  on  the  reserved  territory  of 
the  upper  river.  This  f  orestation  of  the  sources 
guarantees  the  preservation  of  the  ultimate  ponds 
of  the  river,  with  their  waters  oozing  throughout 

152 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  AT  BEMIDJI 


POKEGAMA  DAM.     THE  REGULATING  GATE  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI 
RESERVOIRS,  UPPER  MISSISSIPPI 


THE  UPPER  MISSISSIPPI 

the  low  season  out  of  the  sheltering  forest  cover. 
To  add  to  the  storage  maintained  in  this  way  and  \  g 
to  check  the  heavy  spring  floods,  the  government 
has  established  a  chain  of  reservoirs  along  the 
stream,  in  Winnibigoshish,  Cass,  Leech,  Pine, 
Sandy,  and  Pokegama  lakes.  Each  of  these  being 
closed  at  its  outlet  by  means  of  a  beartrap  leaf 
set  in  a  permanent  concrete  dam,  the  level  of  the 
water  has  been  raised,  and  a  total  storage  capacity 
of  two  million  acre  feet  —  about  90  billion  cubic  ' 
feet  —  obtained.  As  the  river  falls  below  a  cer- 
tain stage,  the  beartraps  are  lowered  one  after 
another,  and  the  flow  is  allowed  to  escape,  pre- 
serving a  navigable  depth  below  St.  Paul,  and 
influencing  the  river  appreciably  to  the  entrance 
of  Lake  Pepin,  about  500  miles  below  the  lowest 
reservoir.  This  reservoir  system,  on  which  pro- 
gress is  now  halted,  is  not  complete,  and  will 
not  be  until  a  large  proportion  of  the  remaining 
ponds  and  lakes  are  similarly  treated  either  by 
the  federal  government  or  by  the  state  or  by 
private  individuals.  Had  a  comprehensive  system 
of  conservation  been  employed  in  the  beginning, 
when  the  title  to  all  the  land  along  the  river  was 

153 


REMAKING   THE  MISSISSIPPI 

still  in  the  government,  the  reservoirs  should  all 
have  been  placed  as  near  as  possible  to  the  ulti- 
mate source,  in  order  that  the  largest  number  o£ 
waterfalls  might  have  been  affected  by  the  flow 
from  them.  Then  by  the  development  of  these 
water  powers  and  the  electric  transmission  of  the 
power  to  the  nearest  manufacturing  centres,  a 
possibility  which  could  not  have  been  foreseen 
when  the  reservoirs  were  established,  there  would 
have  been  provided  a  definite  revenue  for  the 
government  to  repay  the  original  cost.  As  it  is, 
most  of  these  dam  sites,  beginning  a  few  miles 
below  Itasca  and  extending  to  St.  Anthony's 
Falls,  have  been  alienated  in  perpetuity  without 
recompense  or  any  qualifying  clause,  except  that 
in  each  the  government  may  build  and  operate 
a  lock  when  it  shall  extend  navigation  to  these 
waters ;  and  that  in  each  dam  there  must  be  a 
log  sluice  and  a  fish  way.  It  is  not  yet  settled  to 
what  extent  the  government  can  go  in  the  direc- 
tion of  electrical  development ;  but  there  remains 
open  the  solution  found  by  Wisconsin  for  con- 
serving the  Wisconsin  River,  which  lies  wholly 
within  that  state,  and  which  is  described  later. 

154 


THE  UPPER  MISSISSIPPI 

Eventually,  either  under  some  power  from  the 
general  government  or  under  the  direction  of 
the  state,  the  available  ponds  will  be  conserved  for 
the  benefit  both  of  mill-owners  and  of  navigation. 
The  result,  as  far  as  we  have  gone  now,  is  to 
increase  the  navigable  low-water  channel  at  St. 
Paul  a  foot  in  depth.  The  ultimate  result  must 
be  to  multiply  the  storage  capacity  by  about  four 
or  five  times,  to  increase  the  period  during  which 
the  reservoirs  are  drawn  upon,  and  to  add  at  least 
a  foot  and  probably  eighteen  inches  more  to  the 
low- water  channel  depth. 

All  this,  of  course,  means  electrical  power  de- 
velopment, and  the  employment  of  that  power 
in  electric  smelting  of  the  ores  hidden  beneath 
the  reservoirs  and  under  the  surrounding  lands ; 
in  paper-making;  in  milling  the  northwestern 
wheat;  in  manufacturing  various  articles  from 
the  forest  growth;  and  in  electro-chemical  enter- 
prises, which  will  create  a  greater  traffic  for  the 
upper  river  itself.  No  careful  estimate  has  yet 
been  made  of  the  power  which  lies  in  this  stream, 
and  there  is  as  yet  no  commercial  development  to 
make  use  of  it.  There  is  used  at  Minneapolis 

155 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

to-day,  at  the  lowest  falls,  43,000  horse-power. 
Between  the  head  of  St.  Anthony's  Falls  and  St. 
Cloud  there  is  at  least  100,000  horse-power ;  and 
it  is  probable  that  with  the  reservoirs  established 
there  will  be  in  the  long,  steep  fall  from  Itasca  to 
St.  Cloud  at  least  another  100,000.  With  the 
development  of  that  will  come  the  final  establish- 
ment of  barge  navigation,  to  or  nearly  to  the 
source,  by  means  of  the  same  dams  which  de- 
velop the  power  and  by  stone  locks  beside  them. 
Open  channel  work,  the  clearing  away  of  per- 
manent obstructions  and  of  bars,  will  also  be  a 
feature  of  the  work. 

The  greatest  obstacle  to  navigation  between 
the  upper  and  the  middle  rivers  is  the  stretch  of 
swift  water  beginning  at  the  mouth  of  the  Min- 
nesota River,  halfway  between  St.  Paul  and 
Minneapolis,  and  extending  upstream  above  the 
head  of  St.  Anthony's  Falls.  No  attempt  has  yet 
been  made  to  pass  the  falls  themselves,  though  it 
ultimately  will  be  done  probably  by  an  abrupt  dam 
replacing  the  falls,  and  high  enough  to  drown 
out  the  rapids,  and  by  a  lock  and  short  canal  for 
steamboats.  Below  the  falls  the  federal  govern- 

156 


THE  UPPER  MISSISSIPPI 

ment  has  built  two  locks  and  dams,  in  an  effort 
to  establish  five-foot  navigation  ;  but  as  two  feet 
is  all  that  can  be  carried  as  yet  up  to  the  lowest 
dam,  there  has  been  no  haste  in  finishing  them. 
It  is  probable  that  when  the  electrical  develop- 
ment comes  on,  a  larger  dam  drowning  out  both 
of  these  will  be  built  to  concentrate  the  power. 
Certainly  a  five-foot  channel  can  and  must  be 
provided  eventually  for  carrying  in  coal,  for 
carrying  out  flour  from  the  wonderful  mills  of 
Minneapolis,  and  for  carrying  out  either  ore  to 
the  smelter  or  manufactured  iron  products  from 
the  fabulous  and  untouched  iron  beds  of  western 
and  central  Minnesota. 

The  Minnesota  River,  formerly  called  the  St. 
Peter,  which  enters  the  Mississippi  above  St. 
Paul,  is  one  of  its  chief  tributaries  in  importance, 
a  prairie  stream  flowing  through  what  was  ori- 
ginally the  main  valley  of  the  Mississippi.  Before 
the  fall  of  the  waters  or  the  shifting  of  the 
ground  levels  stopped  such  a  flow,  the  waters  of 
Lake  Winnipeg  and  its  allies  came  down  through 
Ked  River  of  the  North  and  flowed  south  through 
this  Minnesota  River  and  on  down  the  Missis- 

157 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

sippi.  The  divide  between  the  two  systems  now 
is  hardly  appreciable,  and  in  time  will  be  covered 
by  the  establishment  of  reservoirs  at  the  sources 
of  both.  The  Minnesota  is  capable  of  consider- 
able storage  development,  adding  to  the  conser- 
vation of  the  flood  waters  of  the  river. 

From  the  Minnesota  down,  navigation  is  an 
actual  fact.  The  work  has  been  done  to  establish 
a  shallow  but  "open"  channel.  The  aim  has 
been  to  close  all  secondary  channels  and  con- 
centrate the  water  in  one;  to  remove  all  ob- 
structing rock  reefs,  and  as  far  as  possible  the 
bars ;  *  to  keep  the  new  bars  dredged ;  to  provide 
ice  harbors  and  shelters,  as  well  as  local  harbors 
for  towns ;  to  riprap  threatened  banks ;  and  to 
provide  artificial  channels  through  the  two  prin- 
cipal obstructions  of  the  stream,  the  Des  Moines 
and  Rock  Island  rapids. 

Des  Moines  rapids  extends  for  about  twelve 
miles  upstream  from  Keokuk,  Iowa,  in  which  dis- 
tance the  river  falls  more  than  twenty  feet.  This 
rapid  is  impassable  at  low  stages,  and  in  early 
days  absolutely  prevented  the  upstream  passage 
of  steamboats  except  on  liberal  water.  At  the  close 

158 


THE  UPPER  MISSISSIPPI 

of  the  Civil  War  the  government  engineers  took 
charge,  and,  aided  by  liberal  appropriations,  began 
the  construction  of  a  canal  about  the  rapids,  with 
a  series  of  three  locks  of  about  eight  feet  drop 
each,  to  pass  steamboats  of  a  size  up  to  350  by  75 
feet,  and  drawing  five  feet.  This  canal  and  the 
accompanying  locks  were  completed  about  1880, 
at  a  cost  a  little  less  than  $6,000,000. 

The  Kock  Island  rapids,  opposite  the  city  of 
that  name,  are  less  extensive  than  those  at  Keo- 
kuk,  but  equally  impassable.  At  the  same  time 
that  work  began  at  the  Des  Moines  rapids,  opera- 
tions were  begun  at  Kock  Island  on  an  open  cut 
through  the  rock.  This  cut  was  made  chiefly  by 
means  of  stone  chisels,  working  in  grooves  in 
floats.  This  work  was  extremely  difficult  and  ex- 
pensive, as  high  as  $18  a  cubic  yard  being  paid 
for  the  removal  of  some  of  the  rock.  The  work 
was  prosecuted  under  a  long  series  of  appropri- 
ations, and  not  completed  until  after  the  Des 
Moines  canal  locks  were  opened.  The  straight- 
away channel,  300  feet  wide,  was  later  deepened 
to  give  a  depth  of  four  and  one  half  feet  below 
ordinary  low  water. 

159 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

This  work,  and  that  at  Des  Moines  rapids,  is, 
however,  of  a  makeshift  character,  designed  en- 
tirely for  the  purpose  of  providing  navigation, 
and  taking  no  other  account  of  the  value  of  the 
running  water.  Already  steps  are  under  way  to 
replace  it  by  more  complete  development.  A  pri- 
vate corporation  has  been  given  the  privilege  of 
drowning  out  the  Des  Moines  rapids  and  of  de- 
veloping the  power,  and  even  if  this  concern  fails 
to  do  the  work,  it  has  become  evident  that  in  time 
it  will  be  done  there  and  at  Rock  Island  as  well. 

The  project  for  Des  Moines  consists  in  the 
erection  of  a  dam  35  feet  high,  flooding  the  rap- 
ids, and  extending  diagonally  across  the  stream 
from  Keokuk  to  the  Illinois  shore  at  a  point  some 
distance  upstream.  The  three  locks  and  the  long 
canal  now  held  by  the  government  will  also  be 
flooded  out,  and  deep  water  will  exist  at  all  stages 
for  a  considerable  distance  above  the  head  of  the 
canal  at  Montrose.  In  place  of  the  three  locks  a 
single  great  lock  will  be  placed  beside  the  dam, 
and  navigation  will  be  facilitated  by  the  substitu- 
tion of  quick  and  open  movement  for  the  slow 
canal  passage.  The  water  power  at  Keokuk  will 

160 


BIRD'S-EYE  VIEW,  LOCK  AND  DAM  NO.  2,  MISSISSIPPI  RIVER 


STEAMER  ENTERING  LOCK  AT  KEOKUK,  UPPER  MISSISSIPPI 


THE  UPPER  MISSISSIPPI 

vary  in  amount  with  the  stage  of  the  water,  being 
greatest  at  mid  stages,  less  at  low  water,  and  least 
in  floods ;  but  the  continued  increase  of  reservoir- 
ing  on  the  Wisconsin,  the  Chippewa,the  St.  Croix, 
the  Minnesota,  and  the  Upper  Mississippi,  which 
will  be  steadily  carried  on,  will  tend  to  regulate 
this  and  make  the  medium  flow  a  standard,  de- 
veloping something  in  excess  of  150,000  horse- 
power. The  dam,  locks,  and  electric  plant  will 
cost  about  $10,000,000. 

With  the  work  at  the  two  rapids  and  the  regu- 
larizing improvements,  a  reliable  channel,  four 
feet  six  inches  deep  at  low  water,  has  been  pro- 
vided from  St.  Paul  down  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Missouri. 

Below  the  Des  Moines  rapids  and  canal  the  up- 
per river  comes  under  the  domination  of  the  Mis- 
souri, a  river  less  in  volume  of  water  than  the 
Mississippi,  but  extremely  full  of  suspended  earthy 
matter,  brought  down  chiefly  from  its  upper  trib- 
utaries. From  this  point  to  Cairo,  or  rather  to 
Commerce,  the  river  is  difficult  to  manage,  and 
presents  problems  differing  from  those  met  in  the 
clear  water  above  and  from  those  in  the  rockless 

161 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

river  below.  The  difficulty  met  with  in  maintain- 
ing an  eight-foot  channel  there  is  increased  by  the 
new  necessity  of  providing  14  feet  through  part 
of  the  stretch,  to  accommodate  the  "Lakes-to-the- 
Gulf  "  deep  waterway,  which  is  to  enter  from  the 
Illinois  just  above  the  Missouri.  This  is  to  be 
accomplished  by  erecting  a  dam  at  Alton,  below 
the  Illinois  and  above  the  Missouri,  which  will 
deepen  the  Mississippi  above  to  14  feet  at  low 
water,  and  will  keep  out  from  it  the  silt  problem 
of  the  Missouri,  always  a  complication  when  the 
Missouri  is  the  higher.  From  this  dam  a  canal  14 
feet  deep  will  extend  down  the  Illinois  shore  to 
a  point  near  St.  Louis,  where  it  will  again  enter 
the  Mississippi.  St.  Louis  harbor  is  already  deep- 
ened and  contracted,  and  from  this  point  down 
to  Commerce  rock  removal  and  the  methods  of 
contraction  and  revetment  combined  will  be  suf- 
ficient to  obtain  a  deep  waterway.  At  present  this 
part  of  the  river  is  in  a  neglected  condition,  the 
money  spent  below  Cairo  and  that  above  St.  Louis 
not  having  been  paralleled  in  this  stretch  which 
connects  those  two  regions.  Ostensibly  an  eight- 
foot  channel  is  maintained  by  dredging,  but  prac- 

162 


THE  UPPER  MISSISSIPPI 

tically  it  occasionally  shoals  up  to  five  feet  or  less 
over  critical  bars. 

The  Upper  Mississippi  has  four  principal  tribu- 
taries, of  which  two,  the  Missouri  and  the  Illinois, 
are  worthy  of  treatment  in  separate  chapters.  The 
other  two  are  the  Minnesota  and  the  Wisconsin ; 
and  the  St.  Croix  and  the  Chippewa  might  be 
added  to  them. 

The  Wisconsin  is  the  only  stream  in  America 
for  which  a  complete  and  definite  system  of  work- 
ing-out has  been  adopted,  which  includes  the 
storage  of  water  and  its  effective  use  for  power. 
The  river  was  long  worked  over  by  the  federal 
authorities,  who  employed  the  usual  means  of 
contraction,  deflecting  dikes,  and  dredging  to 
maintain  a  channel ;  and  in  this  were  the  more 
persistent  because  the  Wisconsin  approaches  the 
Fox  at  Portage,  and  a  canal  there  connected  Lake 
Michigan  with  the  Mississippi  by  the  route  over 
which  Marquette  first  came  to  the  West.  As  the 
extensive  forests  of  the  upper  country  were  de- 
molished, however,  the  Wisconsin,  always  a  river 
hard  to  manage,  became  filled  with  sand-bars  to 
an  extent  which  precluded  successful  develop- 

163 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

ment;  and  its  waters  became  hard  to  control, 
extremely  heavy  floods  and  long  droughts  alter- 
nating with  each  other.  Accordingly  the  federal 
authorities  abandoned  the  stream  and  pronounced 
it  unnavigable. 

But  the  interest  of  the  state  in  the  stream  was 
due  to  another  element.  This  river  furnishes, 
with  the  Fox,  the  principal  power  on  which  Wis- 
consin depends  for  her  increasing  manufactures. 
The  state  contains  no  mineral  fuel.  It  was  essen- 
tial to  continued  prosperity  that  the  river  be  re- 
servoired,  in  order  to  conserve  the  flood  supply 
for  low  season.  The  state  forester  had  already 
selected  the  headwaters  of  the  Wisconsin  as  the 
location  for  a  forest  reserve  of  about  three  million 
acres,  of  which  about  one  tenth  is  already  ac- 
quired and  in  trees.  In  1907  there  was  passed  a 
bill  allowing  the  mill-owners  along  this  stream  to 
incorporate  an  improvement  corporation.  This 
corporation  was  given  power  to  enter  upon  all 
the  streams  and  ponds  at  the  headwaters,  in  and 
out  of  the  forest  reserve,  and  to  dam  them  for 
the  purpose  of  impounding  water  to  preserve  the 
power.  But  the  forester  was  given  authority  to 

164 


THE  UPPER  MISSISSIPPI 

employ  engineers  at  their  expense,  and  to  deter- 
mine exactly  how  high  the  water  in  each  pond 
might  be  raised,  to  mark  that  point  with  stone 
monuments,  and  thereafter  to  have  control  over 
the  storage  and  the  use  of  the  water.  The  state 
railway  commission  was  given  authority  to  employ 
engineers,  and  to  survey  and  determine  the  exact 
power  previously  obtained  at  every  dam  site,  the 
area  of  its  watershed,  the  amount  of  pondage,  and 
the  flow  every  week  of  the  year.  When  the  stor- 
age system  has  been  completed,  the  commission 
will  make  another  survey,  and  determine  the 
amount  to  which  every  power  is  benefited.  The 
corporation  is  allowed  to  issue  stock  to  pay  the 
cost  of  the  improvements,  and  an  assessment  is 
laid  upon  betterment  to  pay  the  cost  of  the  state 
supervision  and  six  per  cent  dividends  on  the 
stock.  This  tax  is  assessed  by  the  railway  com- 
missioners each  year,  according  to  betterment. 
There  are  provisions  against  the  establishment 
of  a  monopoly,  and  the  state  retains  the  right  to 
buy  out  the  corporation  at  a  fixed  valuation. 

Under  the  operation  of  this  wise  law,  the  for- 
ests of  Wisconsin  will  furnish  yearly  a  larger 

165 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

amount  of  material  for  the  use  of  her  factories. 
The  water  stored  under  the  forest  cover  and  in 
the  ponds  will  furnish  a  maximum  of  power  to 
turn  the  wheels;  and  the  stream  itself,  protected 
from  sand  wash  by  the  forests,  settled  in  the 
ponds,  and  free  from  logs  and  other  obstructions, 
will  again  become  a  navigable  waterway  not  only 
up  to  Kilbourne,  where  vessels  were  formerly 
halted,  but  for  many  miles  farther  through  the 
heart  of  the  state.  The  development  of  the  navi- 
gable channel  will  be  almost  an  automatic  affair, 
with  the  exception  of  the  construction  of  locks  at 
the  dams ;  and  the  Mississippi  itself  will  be  largely 
benefited  by  the  additional  steady  low- water  flow 
which  will  be  contributed  to  it  at  Prairie  du 
Chi  en. 

Our  financial  account  with  the  main  stream 
of  the  Mississippi  above  Cairo,  up  to  June  30, 
1906,  is  as  follows :  — 

To  and  including 

1892.                   Des  Moines  Rapids,  canal,  and  lock,  $5,345,450.00 

Lake  Pepin,  60,000.00 

Meeker's  Island,  25,000.00 

St.  Paul  to  Des  Moines  Rapids,  2,833,100.00 

Rock  Island  Rapids,  1,166,000.00 

(In  1852.)              Rock  Island  and  Des  Moines  Rapids,  100,000.00 

Des  Moines  Rapids  to  the  Ohio,  6,001,000.00 

Minneapolis  to  the  Missouri  (1892),  600,000.00 

166 


THE  UPPER  MISSISSIPPI 

Missouri  to  the  Ohio  (1892),  525,000.00 

Snags  (1870-1892),  507,000.00 

St.  Louis  harbor,  182,000.00 

1893,  March  3.     Ohio  to  Missouri,  658,333.33 

Missouri  to  Minneapolis,  866,666.67 

1894,  Aug.  13.      St.  Paul  to  Minneapolis,  Lock  and 

Dam  2,  51,000.00 

Aug.  18.       Ohio  to  Missouri,  758,333.33 

Missouri  to  Minneapolis,  866,666.67 

1895,  March  2.      Ohio  to  Missouri  (of  which  $150,000 

for  trying  movable  jetties),  758,333.33 
Missouri  to  Minneapolis  (many  small 

specifications),  866,666.67 

1896,  June  3.         St.  Paul  to  Minneapolis,  100,000.00 

St.  Paul  to  the  Missouri,  200,000.00 

Missouri  to  Ohio,  275,000.00 
(Continuing  contract  for  $5,000,- 
025,  and  order  for  nine-foot 
channel  below  St.  Louis.) 

1897,  June  4.         Ohio  to  Missouri,  673,333.33 

Missouri  to  Minneapolis,  826,666.67 

To  prevent  Cache  River  cut-off,  100,000.00 

1897,  July  19.       Ohio  to  Missouri,  325,000.00 

Missouri  to  St.  Paul,  200,000.00 

1898,  July  1.         Ohio  to  Missouri,  673,333.33 

Missouri  to  St.  Paul,  826,666.67 

1899,  March  3.      Ohio  to  Missouri,  673,333.33 

Missouri  to  St.  Paul,  826,666.67 

St.  Paul  to  Minneapolis  (dam),  150,000.00 

1900,  June  6.         St.  Paul  to  Minneapolis,  185,000.00 

Ohio  to  St.  Paul,  250,000.00 

1902,  March  3.      St.  Paul  to  Minneapolis,  157,000.00 
(Secretary  of  Treasury  author- 
ized to  pay  balance  of  a  con- 
tinuing contract  authorized  in 
1899.) 

Missouri  to  St.  Paul,  400,000.00 
(Three-year  continuing  contract, 

$1,200,000.) 

1902,  June  13.       Ohio  to  Missouri,  150,000.00 

(Continuing  contract,  $1,950,000.) 

1902,  June  28.       St.  Paul  to  Minneapolis,  250,000.00 


167 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

223,579.33 
650,000.00 
400,000.00 
650,000.00 


1903,  March  3.      St.  Paul  to  Minneapolis, 

Ohio  to  Missouri  (continuing  con- 
tract), 

St.  Paul  to  Missouri  (continuing  con- 
tract), 

1904,  April  28.      Ohio  to  Missouri  (continuing  con- 

tract), 

St.  Paul  to  Missouri  (continuing  con- 
tract), 

1905,  March  3.      Moline  harhor, 

(Dredging  ordered  below  Mis- 
souri, engineers  may  use  bal- 
ance on  hand.) 

1905,  March  3. 

S.  C.  bill,       Mouth  of  Ohio  to  the  Missouri, 
Missouri  to  St.  Paul, 

1906,  June  30.       Missouri  to  St.  Paul, 

Moline  harbor, 

1907,  St.  Paul  to  Minneapolis,  dams  land  2, 


1872-1892. 

1879-1892. 
1894,  Aug.  13. 
1896,  June  3. 
1899,  March  3. 
1902,  June  13. 
1905,  March  3. 

1874-1892. 


Preserving  St.  Anthony's  Falls, 


400,000.00 
100,000.00 


650,000.00 
400,000.00 
300,000.00 
150,000.00 
30,000.00 

$33,391,779.33 
615,000.00 


BESEBVOIBS. 


Winnibigoshish  reservoir, 

Leech  Lake  reservoir, 

Pine  River  dam  and  other  purposes, 

Care  of  river  above  Falls, 


814,000.00 
51,000.00 
80,000.00 
210,000.00 
250,000.00 
160,000.00 
133,000.00 

$35,704,779.33 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  MISSOURI 

OF  all  the  branches  of  the  Mississippi  system, 
that  one  which  offers  the  greatest  variety  of 
problems  for  the  engineers  to  solve  is  the  Mis- 
souri ;  and  this  by  reason  of  its  uncertain  water 
supply,  its  burden  of  silt  eroded  from  its  upper 
tributaries,  the  friable  nature  of  its  lower  bed, 
and  the  fact  that  its  waters  are  in  demand  not 
only  for  the  usual  purposes  of  power  and  naviga- 
tion, but,  in  addition,  for  irrigation.  Yet  in  pro- 
portion as  it  offers  large  problems,  so  it  contains 
the  promise  of  large  reward  in  achievement. 
When  the  Missouri  system  shall  have  been  de- 
veloped to  its  fullest  extent,  a  large  portion  of 
semi-arid  North  America  not  now  useful  for  hu- 
man habitation  will  have  been  transformed  into 
a  garden  of  plenty. 

The  Missouri  has  its  rise  in  the  union  of  three 
rivers  in  the  mountains  of  southern  Montana,  and 
becomes  almost  at  once  navigable.  It  continues 

169 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

useful  for  steamboats  for  several  hundred  miles, 
and  then  plunges  down  through  a  rocky  course 
over  falls  aggregating  512  feet,  where  it  creates 
at  low  water  a  power  of  about  500,000  horse, 
some  of  which  is  already  developed.  Below  Great 
Falls  it  again  becomes  theoretically  navigable, 
Fort  Benton  having  been  for  many  years  head 
of  the  steamboat  channel.  From  there  across  the 
arid  Bad  Lands  of  North  Dakota,  down  through 
the  heart  of  both  Dakotas,  near  the  richest  wheat 
lands  in  America,  between  the  fertile  corn  lands 
of  Nebraska  and  Iowa,  of  Kansas  and  Missouri, 
it  continues  to  maintain  a  channel  capable  of 
development  by  ordinary  channel  methods  above 
Sioux  City  to  a  depth  of  three  feet,  and  below 
Sioux  City  to  six  feet  under  present  conditions, 
both  channels  being  capable  of  still  higher 
development  when  the  ultimate  schemes  at  head- 
waters shall  have  been  carried  out. 

The  Missouri  is  a  river  with  a  bad  reputation, 
especially  for  shifting  its  bed.  During  the  thou- 
sand miles  immediately  below  Fort  Benton,  it 
flows  largely  through  rocky  regions  or  through 
a  land  where  it  cannot  widely  change  its  chan- 

170 


A  GROIN  TO  PREVENT  UNDERSCOUR 


SINKING  A  GROIN,  MISSOURI    RIVER 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

or 


THE  MISSOURI 

nel.  After  passing  Sioux  City,  however,  it  flows, 
like  the  Lower  Mississippi,  in  a  hill-compelled 
major  bed,  in  which  is  a  minor  bed  of  its  own 
establishment,  bounded  only  by  sand  and  soft  al- 
luvion, except  where  the  river  has  driven  back 
against  its  bluffs.  It  is  a  river  of  swift  current, 
and  cuts  and  tears  its  banks  with  more  violence 
than  does  the  larger  river  downstream.  It  is, 
however,  not  deep,  and  the  measures  for  its  con- 
trol need  not  be  as  costly  as  those  for  the  Lower 
Mississippi. 

The  story  of  the  development  of  the  Missouri 
is  soon  told,  though  it  is  a  story  which  should  be 
more  widely  known.  In  the  early  days  of  steam- 
boat traffic,  when  the  Missouri  was  carrying  its 
share  of  the  great  rush  to  the  plains  and  the 
gold  fields,  the  channel  was  not  only  shifty,  but 
snag-infested.  Steamboats  ran  only  by  daylight. 
The  government  kept  snagboats  at  work  in  the 
channel,  but  in  spite  of  their  efforts  three  hun- 
dred steamboats  were  lost  in  the  river,  of  which 
almost  all  were  snagged.  It  was  not  until  1884, 
four  years  after  the  Mississippi  River  Commis- 
sion had  begun  to  manifest  its  usefulness,  that 

171 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

Congress  created  the  Missouri  River  Commission, 
and  gave  it  charge  of  the  stream.  At  first  this 
body  had  charge  of  all  the  Missouri,  and  at  once 
began  a  comprehensive  survey;  but  later  the 
plan  followed  on  the  Mississippi  was  adopted, 
and  the  river  above  Sioux  City  was  taken  from 
the  commission's  charge  and  given  into  the 
hands  of  the  individual  engineer  officers.  Con- 
trol works  on  the  Missouri  necessarily  were  of 
the  type  described  on  the  Lower  Mississippi, — 
that  is  to  say,  they  were  entirely  local  in  their 
character  and  had  no  influence  and  no  purpose 
toward  influence  upon  the  general  regime  of  the 
river. 

A  survey  of  the  stream  made  by  the  Missouri 
River  Commission  demonstrated  that,  with  its 
existing  flow,  it  was  perfectly  suitable  to  control 
for  navigation  by  the  methods  of  revetment  and 
contraction ;  that  owing  to  its  nature  such  revet- 
ment, to  be  of  value,  must  begin  at  a  fixed  point 
high  upstream  and  continue  thence  to  the  mouth 
in  an  unbroken  system,  so  that  each  bend  might 
deliver  a  current  in  a  definite  line  into  the  bend 
next  below  and  opposite.  The  history  of  the 

172 


THE  MISSOURI 

Missouri  River  Commission,  from  that  time  to  its 
extinction  in  1902,  is  the  story  of  the  continual 
advocacy  of  that  excellent  plan,  and  of  an  at- 
tempt to  carry  it  out,  handicapped  by  the  meth- 
ods of  governmental  control  which  have  hereto- 
fore made  almost  useless  all  our  river  work.  The 
commission,  having  its  plans  made  up,  reported 
to  Congress  in  favor  of  beginning  at  Sioux  City, 
and  from  there  down  maintaining  a  systematic 
work ;  but  compromised  on  beginning  at  Kansas 
City.  It  was  not,  however,  for  several  years 
allowed  to  do  this,  but  was  by  specific  direction 
required  to  spend  its  money  in  revetment  at  cer- 
tain points,  chiefly  to  protect  railway  embank- 
ments and  the  approaches  to  railway  bridges. 
When,  for  a  short  series  of  years,  it  was  allowed 
to  begin  at  Kansas  City  and  work  downstream, 
it  was  given  short  appropriations,  and  was  still 
required  to  maintain  an  expensive  plant  to  carry 
on  the  railway  protection ;  so  that  of  nearly 
$8,000,000  which  was  all  told  appropriated  for 
the  commission,  little  more  than  $3,000,000  was 
allowed  for  systematic  work  in  eighteen  years, 
including  the  cost  of  plant  and  maintenance. 

173 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

Nevertheless,  with  this,  amazing  results  were 
accomplished.  The  problem  of  revetment,  in 
which  at  first  woven  brush  mats  were  used,  proved 
easy  to  solve  with  light  fascine  mattresses,  similar 
to,  but  smaller  than,  those  used  on  the  Missis- 
sippi. A  bend  in  the  Missouri  properly  faced 
with  fascine  revetment  and  stone,  with  the  bend 
above  it  similarly  held  to  insure  direction,  is  safe 
against  any  changes  for  a  long  term  of  years, 
and  may  be  retained  in  that  position  indefinitely. 
Unfortunately  continuous  fascine  revetment,  even 
here  where  the  mats  needed  to  be  but  forty  feet 
wide,  was  more  costly  than  the  commission  could 
provide  for,  though  it  could  sometimes  be  installed 
for  $5000  a  mile.  As  a  result  the  commission 
compromised  on  a  development  of  its  own  called 
a  "  bankhead."  This  bankhead  is  an  isolated  re- 
vetment, made  in  the  form  of  an  arc  with  the 
convex  side  toward  the  river,  the  slopes  being 
protected  by  the  existing  bank,  and  supposedly 
of  a  curvature  which  will  deflect  the  swiftest 
current  without  injury.  The  plan  was  to  place 
these  bankheads  at  sufficiently  frequent  intervals 
along  the  concave  shores  to  establish  salient 

174 


OF  THE 

{    UNIVERSITY  J 

OF 

£4LlFOR]ii> 


THE  MISSOURI 

points  and  hold  the  bank  against  erosion,  the 
theory  being  that,  as  the  bank  between  them  was 
eaten  out,  eddies  were  established  in  which  the 
river  had  not  the  power  to  eat  to  any  destructive 
distance. 

In  theory  the  bankhead  works  well.  In  practice, 
on  such  a  stream  as  the  Missouri,  it  requires  to 
be  set  so  close  to  its  fellow,  and  is  so  liable  even 
then  to  injury,  that  it  is  not  a  practicable  per- 
manent solution ;  and  but  for  lack  of  money  it 
would  not  have  been  adopted  there. 

Supplementary  to  the  bankheads,  many  forms 
of  dikes  were  used  to  close  secondary  channels 
and  to  contract  the  stream  at  low  water  into  a 
navigable  bed.  On  no  other  of  our  waters  was 
the  ingenuity  of  our  engineers  so  taxed  as  here. 
Many  forms  of  small  dike  construction,  and  such 
oddities  as  gabions,  and  burrs  —  woven  cages  of 
brush  filled  with  rock  and  sunk  to  form  out-foot- 
ing for  bankheads  and  foundation  for  sand-bars 
—  were  worked  out  and  built  in  large  numbers. 
The  problem  was  one  of  getting  the  most  work 
done  with  the  least  expenditure. 

The  chief  difficulty  encountered  in  the  long 
175 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

reach  of  river,  nearly  500  miles,  from  Kansas 
City  to  St.  Louis,  was  at  the  mouth  of  the  Osage 
Kiver,  where  the  addition  of  a  heavy  sand-bearer 
from  the  right  bank  had  always  created  shifting 
bars  and  kept  the  channel  intricate  and  shoal. 
The  commission  not  only  undertook  the  manage- 
ment of  the  Osage  by  means  suggested  by  the 
elder  Haupt  for  the  Ohio,  —  that  is,  alternate 
open  sections  and  narrow  canals,  shaped  by  train- 
ing dikes,  —  but  made  a  new  mouth  for  the  river 
into  the  Missouri,  and  revetted  heavily  opposite 
to  it  in  both  directions  to  insure  permanency. 
The  result  was  most  happy,  so  that  with  three 
years  of  fair  appropriations  the  engineers  were 
able  to  clear  a  five-foot  channel  and  maintain  it 
through  this  reach ;  and  by  the  end  of  1900  they 
were  able  to  assure  boatmen  a  five-foot  channel 
at  extreme  low  water  from  the  mouth  of  the  Mis- 
souri up  to  Jefferson  City,  a  distance  of  more 
than  250  miles. 

When  Congress  decided  to  abandon  the  Mis- 
souri in  1902,  because  there  was  then  no  commerce 
on  the  river,  the  question  of  the  control  of  the 
existing  stream  had  been  solved.  Up  above  Sioux 

176 


THE  MISSOURI 

City  training  dikes  had  been  erected,  snagboats 
and  rockboats  had  removed  obstructions,  and  fair 
channels  for  three-foot  navigation  had  in  many 
places  been  established.  No  attempt  had  been 
made  on  the  ultimate  control.  But  in  the  lower, 
on  the  theoretically  impossible  "Muddy,"  the 
river  which  was  supposed  to  be  able  to  twist  any 
controlling  works  ever  designed  into  any  shape 
it  wished,  the  commission  had  established  beyond 
cavil  that  competent  engineers,  with  ample  but 
not  extravagant  appropriations,  could  do  what- 
ever they  set  out  to. 

Since  1902  nothing  has  been  done  beyond  occa- 
sional snagging  on  this  part  of  the  river;  but  the 
channel  remains,  showing  some  of  the  effects  of 
the  commission's  work,  unprotected  as  it  was  left. 
The  five-foot  channel  to  Kansas  City  persists 
most  of  the  time,  and  except  for  snags,  navi- 
gation is  almost  as  safe  there  as  on  the  Lower 
Mississippi. 

On  the  real  development  of  the  Missouri,  how- 
ever, we  have  yet  to  enter.  This  mighty  stream — 
for  mighty  it  is,  though  in  volume  less  than  the 
Ohio  or  the  Upper  River — draws  many  of  its  trib- 

177 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

utaries  from  a  region  which  contains  almost  no 
forest  cover.  This  barren  land  receives  some  snow 
in  winter,  and  heavy  rains  in  May  and  late  April. 
These  rains,  after  melting  the  snows,  erode  the 
land,  and  run  with  increasing  burdens  of  sus- 
pended matter  into  the  small  streams  and  thence 
into  the  larger.  Most  of  the  tributaries  which  come 
in  from  North  Dakota's  western  half  flow  through 
deep  gorges,  and  through  a  country  broken  and 
irregular  from  this  erosion.  It  is  the  silt  acquired 
here  and  from  the  Yellowstone  which  makes  the 
problem  of  control  so  heavy  lower  down. 

After  the  spring  rains  are  off  there  fall  only  oc- 
casional showers  over  this  arid  region,  and  these 
showers  are  so  scattered  that  they  are  lost  in  evap- 
oration without  reaching  the  river.  The  Missouri 
has  a  watershed  more  than  double  that  of  the 
Ohio,  but  even  were  its  rainfall  heavier  than  it  is, 
the  run-off  percentage  is  so  low  it  could  not  equal 
the  eastern  stream  in  flow.  Consequently  the 
Missouri  "dreens  away,"  until  it  becomes  in  the 
low  months  but  an  insignificant  stream  in  an  enor- 
mous bed  prepared  by  and  for  the  spring  freshets. 

In  many  of  these  broken  ridges  of  the  Missouri 
178 


THE  MISSOURI 

country  there  are  fabulous  stores  of  lignite  coal. 
It  crops  out  in  veins  sometimes  40  feet  in  thick- 
ness. All  along  the  river,  between  the  water  bed 
and  top  of  the  bluffs,  are  benches  of  land  which 
with  proper  water  supply  would  be  of  very  great 
value  for  farming.  There  are  no  dam  sites  on  the 
Missouri  below  Fort  Benton,  nor  on  many  of  the 
tributaries  in  North  Dakota,  available  for  the  pur- 
pose of  irrigating  by  gravity.  The  Government 
Eeclamation  Service,  however,  has  come  to  the 
adoption  of  a  new  plan,  establishing  "mine-cen- 
tral" stations  at  these  lignite  mines,  and  convey- 
ing the  electric  power  there  generated  to  motor 
pumps  at  distant  stations,  by  which  the  water  of 
the  Missouri  is  pumped  up  to  canals  on  the  several 
benches,  sometimes  100  feet  above  the  river.  The 
establishment  of  these  irrigated  regions  along  the 
stream  will  itself  have  a  considerable  effect  upon 
the  soil  wash.  And  as  every  pumping  station  has 
a  settling  basin,  where  the  burden  of  silt  is  ex- 
tracted from  the  water,  considerable  amounts  of 
waste  soil  will  thus  be  recovered  to  be  returned  to 
the  land.  But  it  is  impossible  that  the  pumping 
of  large  amounts  of  river  water  should  be  allowed 

179 


REMAKING  LTHE  MISSISSIPPI 

from  a  navigable  stream  at  low  seasons,  unless 
some  compensatory  measure  is  adopted.  Accord- 
ingly the  ravines  of  the  Bad  Lands  and  the  gorges 
of  the  Montana  mountains  must  one  by  one  be 
dammed,  and  transformed  into  storage  reservoirs, 
for  which  purpose  they  are  as  well  suited  as  they 
are  ill  fitted  to  furnish  a  gravity  flow  to  the  higher 
benches.  In  the  reservoirs  thus  established  in  the 
heart  of  the  Bad  Lands  will  be  found,  first,  a  steady- 
ing influence  on  the  stream;  second,  a  means  of 
settling  and  collecting  suspended  earth;  third,  a 
source  of  supply  for  irrigation  and  of  power  for 
pumping;  fourth,  perhaps  best  of  all,  a  decided 
influence  on  the  climate,  producing  by  evapora- 
tion an  added  moisture  for  the  air,  which  will  not 
be  without  effect  upon  the  surrounding  country. 
Trees  will  be  planted  along  the  river  banks;  and 
the  added  moisture,  aided  by  irrigation,  will  be 
used  to  transform  such  of  the  adjacent  regions  as 
can  be  reached  by  pumping,  into  farm  lands,  and 
much  of  the  rest  into  forest  tracts,  thus  cutting 
down  to  a  minor  factor  the  erosion  of  the  soil. 

What  will  be  done  in  North  Dakota  will  be  done 
also  in  Montana,  on  the  cloudy  Yellowstone  and 

180 


THE  MISSOURI 

Milk  rivers;  and  on  the  lower  tributaries  similar 
works  will  be  adopted.  Additional  storage,  addi- 
tional power,  and  a  lessened  erosion  will  result 
from  all  these  means;  and  in  the  end  there  will  be 
a  Missouri  which  will  send  down  no  great  June 
rise, — for  that  will  be  checked  in  the  reservoirs, 
— and  which  will  not  go  dry  in  the  fall ;  but  in 
which  from  the  time  the  ice  moves  out  until  it 
comes  again  there  will  be  an  ample  and  steady  and 
fairly  clear  water  supply  to  follow  the  contracted 
and  revetted  channel  to  the  sea. 

In  addition  to  this,  the  reservoiring  of  the  upper 
branches  will  increase  the  existing  600,000  horse- 
power of  the  Missouri  in  Montana  probably  to 
1,000,000,  from  which  should  come  a  revenue  suf- 
ficient to  improve  the  whole  stream.  Our  present 
bill  to  the  Missouri  is  as  follows:  — 

Appropriated  for  the  Commission,  lower  river      .          $7,010,000 
Appropriated  for  whole  river,  not  under  Commis- 
sion         5,091,000 

Total  spent  on  Missouri  ....  $12,101,000 

To  which  is  added  money  spent  on  the  Osage  and 
Gasconade $803,115.79 

$12,904,115.79 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  OHIO,  AND  CANALIZATION 

HAVING  traced  thus  in  brief  the  develop- 
ment of  the  channel  of  two  of  the  principal 
factors  of  the  Mississippi  by  measures  designed  to 
give  unobstructed  navigation,  and  having  pointed 
out  the  way  by  which  the  conservation  of  these 
streams  must  come  about,  we  come  now  to  a  new 
set  of  problems,  those  which  have  to  do  with  fur- 
nishing a  channel  in  a  river  too  steep  in  slope  for 
open  channel  methods,  too  variable  in  level  for 
the  employment  of  fixed  dams,  and  by  its  moun- 
tainous head  regions  furnishing  the  sudden 
deluges  and  sharp  flood  waves  which  provide  the 
greatest  difficulty  in  holding  the  Lower  Missis- 
sippi levees.  We  come  to  the  problem  of  the 
canalization  of  rivers,  and  especially  to  the  devel- 
opment of  canalization  in  a  river  of  violent  and 
sudden  fluctuations. 

In  volume  of  water,  in  flood  height,  in  destruc- 
tive power,  and,  for  the  present,  in  volume  of 

182 


THE   OHIO,  AND   CANALIZATION 

commerce  borne,  the  Ohio  River  is  easily  first  of 
the  upper  grand  divisions  of  the  Mississippi.  It 
is  greater  than  either  the  Missouri  or  the  Upper 
Mississippi,  and  is  the  source  of  all  the  most 
destructive  floods  which  sweep  the  valley  below 
Cairo.  It  is  a  river  of  rocky  bed  and  of  steep 
slope  in  its  upper  parts,  becoming  in  its  lower 
reaches  gentle  and  full  of  sand-bars.  As  has  been 
described  in  the  chapter  on  hydrology,  it  is  made 
up  chiefly  of  a  large  number  of  swift-running 
mountain  streams,  which  empty  their  heavy  rain- 
falls pellmell  into  the  major  stream ;  and  while 
this  tendency  probably  has  been  considerably  in- 
creased by  the  deforestation  of  the  upper  water- 
shed, the  river  has  always  been  and  must  always 
be  one  of  sudden  accessions  and  sudden  dis- 
charges of  water. 

For  such  a  stream  the  improvement  for  naviga- 
ble purposes  must  take  the  direction  of  reservoir 
control,  in  order  that  a  sufficient  amount  of  water 
may  be  retained  at  all  stages.  The  form  of  this 
reservoir  control,  however,  may  vary  widely ;  and 
the  form  to  be  used  on  the  Ohio  has  always  been 
a  subject  of  interesting  study  among  engineers. 

183 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

The  river  is  itself,  in  a  way,  made  up  of  a 
series  of  inadequate  reservoirs,  with  connecting 
channels.  From  the  formation  of  the  river  by 
the  union  of  the  Allegheny  and  Monongahela 
at  Pittsburg,  down  to  Cairo,  967  miles,  the  river 
falls  about  500  feet ;  of  this  all  but  157  feet 
is  accomplished  above  Cincinnati,  the  smaller 
part  in  the  515  miles  below  that  city.  From  Pitts- 
burg  to  Wheeling  the  slope  is  more  than  a  foot 
to  the  mile. 

The  steep  descent  from  Pittsburg  to  Cincin- 
nati is  by  no  means  accomplished  with  regularity. 
The  river  is,  instead,  a  series  of  natural  reser- 
voirs and  dams.  There  are  in  all  187  pools  in 
which  there  is  more  than  seven  feet  of  water  at 
lowest  stages ;  and  these  are  separated  by  riffles, 
in  which  the  channel  is  steep  and  shoal.  The 
pools  make  up  an  aggregate  of  632.5  miles,  or 
an  average  of  3.47  miles  each.  There  are  on  that 
part  of  the  river  which  borders  the  State  of  Ohio 
103  riffles,  aggregating  137  miles,  in  which  the 
river  falls  170  feet,  or  more  than  a  foot  to  the 
mile ;  while  there  are  on  the  borders  of  the  same 
state,  and  between  these  same  riffles,  309  miles  of 

184 


THE  OHIO,  AND   CANALIZATION 

pools,  in  which  there  is  but  64  feet  fall.  At  Le- 
Tart's  Falls  the  descent  is  3.2  feet  to  the  mile, 
and  there  are  11  riffles  in  which  it  exceeds  2  feet 
to  the  mile.  On  the  other  hand,  a  pool  extending 
from  eight  to  fifteen  miles  below  Cincinnati,  be- 
low Cullom's  riffle,  has  a  fall  of  but  3.5  inches  in 
7  miles.  On  the  Indiana  front  these  conditions  are 
reproduced,  there  being  55  riffles  exclusive  of  the 
Falls  of  the  Ohio  at  Louisville,  with  a  descent  of 
80  feet  in  134  miles,  and  215  miles  of  pool  with 
but  18.13  feet  of  fall,  or  about  an  inch  to  the 
mile.  The  falls  at  Louisville  descend  23.09  feet  in 
2.25  miles.  The  river  flows  in  a  rock-compelled 
bed,  between  rocky  hills.  The  rock  floor  of  the 
valley  is  rarely  more  than  75  feet  below  low 
water  level,  and  is  frequently  within  25  feet  of 
that  line,  the  average  being  between  30  and  50 
feet.  It  comes  to  the  surface  at  many  places,  but 
rarely  or  never  forms  at  this  high  level  a  com- 
plete barrier  across  the  valley,  leaving,  even  at 
LeTart's  Falls,  a  narrow  chute  through  which  an 
open  channel  can  be  maintained. 

During  the  years  since  the  Civil  War  our  gov- 
ernment has  steadily  continued  the  improvement 

185 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

of  the  existing  Ohio  River  channel,  as  it  had 
been  begun  by  Shreve,  by  open-channel  methods. 
These  costly,  and  not  entirely  satisfactory,  oper- 
ations are  still  being  extended.  They  constitute, 
as  do  the  dikes  and  revetments  of  the  Mississippi, 
a  series  of  works  of  regularization,  by  which  it  is 
sought  to  contract  the  river  to  a  regular  and 
sufficient  channel.  For  this  purpose  there  are 
erected  many  miles  of  guiding  dikes,  of  the  most 
permanent  type,  consisting  of  cribbing  and  stone 
work ;  many  dams  and  dikes  behind  islands  and 
across  chutes ;  and  a  large  number  of  ice-harbor 
and  other  protective  works.  Dredges,  snagboats, 
and  rock-removing  craft  have  regularly  patrolled 
the  river,  with  the  result  that  in  the  course  of 
years  what  water  happens  at  a  given  time  to  be 
in  the  river  flows  with  practical  certainty  in  a 
given  channel,  which  is  free  of  obstruction  and 
safe  for  the  navigator  up  to  its  limit  of  depth. 

The  limit  of  depth,  however,  is  very  slight. 
Even  in  the  lower  reaches  the  water  sometimes 
measures  but  twenty  inches,  and  but  for  the  dam 
and  pool  system  the  upper  waters  would  be  even 
more  shoal.  The  river,  which  sports  a  depth  of 

186 


THE  OHIO,  AND   CANALIZATION 

more  than  60  feet  in  February,  is  but  a  pitiful 
rivulet  in  August.  And  from  this  has  naturally 
arisen  the  proposal  for  improving  the  Ohio  by 
means  of  storage  reservoirs.  In  the  end  some  such 
system  will  undoubtedly  be  instituted  on  many 
divisions  of  the  Ohio,  as  it  will  on  nearly  all  our 
rivers.  But  there  are  many  complications  here 
which  render  difficult  its  general  use.  It  is  more 
than  fifty  years  now  since  it  was  proposed  by 
Charles  Ellet,  Jr.,  that  the  improvement  of  the 
Ohio  and  the  prevention  of  floods  on  the  lower 
Mississippi  should  be  brought  about  by  the  same 
means,  the  establishment  of  great  reservoirs  on 
the  upper  waters  of  the  Ohio.  Mr.  Ellet  computed 
that  the  storage  of  a  large  volume  of  water  by 
means  of  dams  in  the  valleys  of  the  Monongahela, 
the  Cheat,  the  Kanawha,  the  Allegheny,  the 
Youghiogheny,  and  many  other  streams  would 
hold  up  enough  to  take  the  dangerous  crests  off 
the  floods,  and  at  the  same  time  would  reserve 
enough  water  to  give  a  good  depth  to  navigation 
during  low-water  stages.  < 

Herman  Haupt,  then  at  the  height  of  his  ca- 
reer, quickly  answered  Ellet's  able  pamphlet  with 

187 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

another,  in  which  he  analyzed  the  whole  scheme 
and  showed  its  weakness.  On  the  Upper  Ohio 
tributaries  the  lands  which  are  particularly  valu- 
able are  those  which  lie  in  the  bottoms  of  the 
valleys ;  on  them  practically  the  whole  population 
was  living.  These  lands  would  be  drowned  out 
by  the  reservoirs.  The  reservoirs  would  need  to 
be  immense,  because  there  are  often  two  or  three 
successive  floods  in  a  year,  and  at  least  one  whole 
flood  must  be  retained  for  the  summer  time.  If 
the  reservoirs  were  filled  with  one  flood,  and  an- 
other came,  they  could  not  prevent  damage; 
whereas  if  they  were  emptied  in  anticipation  and 
no  flood  came,  they  would  have  no  summer  aid. 
Many  other  obstacles  arose  in  the  way  of  the 
plan ;  and  as  mining  has  increased,  and  the  mills 
in  the  valleys  have  increased  by  thousands,  the 
cost  of  such  a  plan  has  advanced  enormously 
since  his  day. 

Instead  of  it  General  Haupt  put  forward  two 
plans,  each  a  modification  of  it,  in  which  local 
storage  along  the  Ohio  itself  was  to  be  used.  In 
his  first  plan  he  would  have  had  a  partial  dam 
with  lock  at  the  foot  of  every  pool,  so  that  water 

188 


THE  OHIO,  AND   CANALIZATION 

should  be  retained  in  them,  and  a  channel  re- 
stricted by  a  low  wall,  only  300  feet  wide,  through 
each  riffle.  Thus  he  would  have  had  at  low  water 
open  channel  navigation  through  the  whole 
stream ;  and  at  moderate  stages  when  there  was 
too  much  fall  from  pool  to  canal,  the  locks  would 
have  been  used.  The  dams  were  to  be  low  to 
allow  for  easy  spilling. 

From  this  worked  out  the  system  which  has 
been  actually  developed,  and  which  will  possibly 
always  be  the  largest  example  of  slack-watering, 
or  canalization,  in  this  country  if  not  in  the  world. 
This  is  the  lock  and  dam  method  finally  recom- 
mended to  Congress  in  1875  by  Majors  Weitzel 
and  Merrill,  adopted  after  long  debate  by  that 
august  body,  and  now  being  by  slow  and  painful 
method  put  into  operation.  It  is  the  method  of 
slack-watering  by  means  of  collapsible  dams,  by 
which  each  of  the  natural  pools  is  reinforced  with 
a  dam  at  its  lower  extremity,  this  dam  being 
equipped  with  a  large  lock;  the  dam  standing 
erect  at  low  water  and  holding  a  large  pool  in  re- 
serve for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  the  channel, 
and  being  thrown  prostrate  on  the  approach  of  a 

189 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

flood,  so  that  the  progress  of  the  wave  may  not 
be  hindered.  By  this  means  it  was  at  first  hoped 
to  obtain  a  six-foot  low-water  channel  in  the 
Ohio;  but  later  surveys  have  demonstrated  the 
possibility  of  increasing  this  to  nine  feet,  and 
the  dams  already  in  operation  are  being  remod- 
eled, as  fast  as  circumstances  will  permit,  to  that 
new  depth.  It  is  possible  twelve  or  fourteen  feet 
may  be  eventually  obtained  by  the  use  of  addi- 
tional mountain  reservoirs. 

Movable  dams,  or  collapsible  dams,  are  of  many 
types ;  and  nearly  all  types  are  to  be  found  on  Amer- 
ican streams.  The  principal  purpose  of  them  all  is 
to  provide  a  barrier  for  the  low-water  flow,  which 
either  automatically  or  with  a  minimum  of  effort 
can  be  removed  from  the  path  of  high  water. 
The  principal  types  are  the  "needle  dam,"  of 
which  perhaps  our  best  example  is  the  dam  at 
Louisa  on  the  Big  Sandy ;  the  Chanoine  wicket 
dam,  which  is  generally  adopted  for  the  Ohio ; 
the  A-frame,  somewhat  used  there ;  and  the  bear- 
trap,  an  American  invention  much  used  for 
sluices  and  weirs,  with  its  modification,  the  Crit- 
tenden  drum  weir  dam.  The  needle  dam  consists  of 

190 


THE  OHIO,  AND   CANALIZATION 

a  supporting  trestle  and  a  number  of  timbers, 
or  needles,  set  upright,  adjacent  to  each  other, 
their  feet  upon  the  dam-sill  and  their  shoulders 
supported  by  the  trestle.  The  trestle  of  a  needle 
dam  consists  of  a  number  of  two-legged  frames, 
A-shaped,  each  set  with  one  leg  directly  down- 
stream from  the  other,  hinged  to  the  foundation 
behind  the  sill  so  that  all  can  fall  together,  side- 
wise,  athwart  the  stream,  and  lie  nested  within 
each  other  behind  the  sill.  In  this  position  they 
offer  no  obstruction  whatever  to  the  passage  of 
floods  or  vessels.  They  are  raised  by  a  chain  pass- 
ing through  them  all  to  the  windlass  on  the 
abutment,  and  are  equipped  with  proper  parts 
for  forming  a  bridge  connecting  them  when  they 
are  upright.  The  timbers  or  needles  for  such  a 
structure  are  usually  four  by  four  inches,  and  as 
long  as  necessary  —  very  commonly  twelve  feet. 
Each  of  these  is  equipped  with  an  iron  ring  at  its 
upper  end.  They  are  set  and  removed  when  occa- 
sion arises,  either  by  a  derrick  carried  on  a  boat 
and  worked  from  above  the  dam,  or  by  a  derrick 
run  on  a  tramway  on  the  trestle  itself,  and  are 
carried  on  cars  to  the  abutment.  The  advantage  of 

191 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

the  wooden  needles,  however,  is  that  a  flood  com- 
ing unexpectedly  and  filling  the  river  to  over- 
flowing lifts  them  from  their  position  and  sweeps 
them  clear,  automatically  relieving  the  river  of 
obstruction.  The  needles,  being  chained,  are  not 
lost.  With  such  a  dam  the  flow  of  water  at  mid 
stages  is  regulated  by  taking  out  one  or  as  many 
needles  as  may  be  required;  and  the  dam  may  be 
made  very  tight  by  placing  strips,  at  extreme  low 
water,  on  the  cracks  between  needles. 

The  A-frame  dam,  the  simplest  of  all  these 
structures,  and  much  in  favor  in  Hungary,  con- 
sists of  nothing  but  the  trestles  which  supported 
the  needle  dam,  their  upstream  surfaces  widened, 
and  themselves  set  so  close  together  that  when 
erected  they  strike  sides,  forming  a  complete  dam. 
They  are  lowered  by  a  chain,  and  lie  nested 
athwart  stream  like  the  trestles.  Such  a  dam 
is  sometimes  used  for  a  regulating  weir  on  the 
Ohio. 

A  beartrap  dam  is  an  American  invention,  in 
which  the  head  of  water  between  the  pool  above 
and  the  stream  below  is  made  to  control  the 
height  of  the  crest  of  a  long  leaf.  The  dam  con- 

192 


BEARTRAP  GATE  AT  LOCKPORT 


DISCHARGE  OF  THE  CHICAGO  SANITARY  CANAL  OVER  THE 
BEARTRAP  GATE 


THE  OHIO,  AND  CANALIZATION 

sists  essentially  of  a  triangular  prism  having  the 
foundation  for  one  side,  and  to  this  is  hinged  two 

'  O 

flaps  or  leaves  for  the  other  sides.  These  form 
between  them  a  prismatic  chamber,  which  under 
pressure  tends  to  extend  indefinitely  in  section 
toward  a  rectangle.  To  do  this  it  must  lift  the 
crest  of  the  dam,  which  is  the  free  end  of  the 
upstream  leaf.  The  pressure  on  the  inside  is  fur- 
nished by  hydrostatic  head  either  from  the  stream 
or  from  a  pressure  tank,  and  is  controlled  by  a 
valve.  The  dam  is  simple  of  operation,  and  in 
some  modified  form  is  usually  employed  as  a  part 
of  the  regulating  weir  or  for  passing  ice  and  logs, 
as  it  requires  little  effort  to  open  and  close  it, 
and  it  permits  an  even  sheet  to  go  over  the  top 
without  widely  opening  the  channel.  In  the  drum 
weir  type  but  a  single  leaf  is  employed,  and  this 
is  lifted  or  lowered  by  the  pressure  of  water  in  a 
drum  or  conduit  underneath.  In  either  type  the 
dam  at  high  water  is  collapsed  upon  the  bottom. 
The  most  used  type  of  movable  dam,  however, 
is  the  Chanoine  wicket,  of  which  are  built  the 
navigable  passes  and  some  of  the  weirs  on  the 
Ohio.  This  dam  dates  from  very  ancient  times, 

193 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

but  attained  its  present  estate  little  more  than  a 
century  ago  through  the  agency  of  a  French 
engineer.  It  consists  of  a  series  of  panels,  usually 
made  four  feet  wide,  set  edge  to  edge  across  the 
stream,  their  feet  braced  against  the  dam-sill,  and 
their  surfaces  supported  against  the  pressure  of 
the  stream  by  an  inclined  prop,  to  which  they 
are  hinged  somewhat  below  their  middle  point. 
As  originally  employed  they  were  intended  to 
stand  until  a  rising  flood  put  upon  this  larger 
top  half  a  greater  pressure  than  on  the  lower 
portion ;  whereupon  they  would  topple  to  a  hori- 
zontal position  and  offer  little  obstruction  to  the 
flow.  To  prevent  opening  a  whole  river  when  the 
emergency  did  not  require  it,  smaller  wicket  gates 
were  set  near  the  top  of  each  panel,  which  would 
thus  open  at  the  proper  time  and  spill  some  of 
the  flood.  Difficulties  in  manipulating  these 
toppling  wickets,  however,  brought  about  the 
present  system  of  positive  operation. 

Under  this  system  each  wicket  in  a  dam  rests 
against  a  horse  and  a  prop,  hinged  together,  the 
horse  also  hinged  to  the  sill,  and  the  prop  ex- 
tending downward  and  backward,  with  its  foot 

194 


THE  OHIO,  AND   CANALIZATION 

trapped  in  an  iron  casting  called  a  "hurter." 
This  hurter,  as  used  on  the  Ohio,  consists  of  a 
channeled  iron  casting,  having  at  the  proper  point 
in  the  channel  a  ledge  for  bracing  the  prop,  and 
a  little  forward  of  this  a  projection  so  set  that  if 
the  foot  of  the  prop  be  dragged  forward  to  this 
point  it  is  automatically  thrown  over  into  a  second 
groove,  which  runs  clear  of  the  bracing  ledge  to 
the  back  of  the  hurter.  Each  panel  is  hinged  to 
the  prop,  and  carries  two  chains,  which  may  be 
operated  from  a  boat  or  may,  more  properly,  be 
managed  from  and  held  fast  to  a  collapsible 
bridge  above  the  dam  resembling  a  needle-dam 
trestle.  To  set  such  a  dam,  the  attendant  raises 
his  bridge,  and  going  out  on  it  draws  up  the 
chain  leading  to  the  bottom  of  the  first  wicket. 
The  panel  which  is  lying  on  the  bottom  behind 
the  sill  rises  in  a  horizontal  position  on  the  horse 
to  which  its  prop  is  hinged.  As  it  rises  the  foot 
of  the  prop  comes  forward  in  the  latching  groove 
of  the  hurter.  When  it  has  passed  the  latch  and 
dropped  to  rest,  the  operator  releases  that  chain, 
and  with  a  quick  pull  on  the  other  draws  the  head 
of  the  wicket  up,  and  the  foot  of  it  falls  against 

195 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

the  sill,  where  the  pressure  of  the  current  holds 
it.  Thus  panel  by  panel  the  dam  is  set,  until  the 
whole  stream  is  checked.  For  very  low  water, 
strips  or  timbers  are  set  against  the  cracks  be- 
tween panels. 

To  lower  such  a  dam,  or  to  open  enough  of  it 
to  regulate  the  flow,  the  operator  draws  in  on  the 
bottom  chain  till  he  tilts  the  panel  up,  and  chains 
it  in  that  position.  If  he  wishes  to  lower  it  alto- 
gether he  pulls  it  still  further,  the  whole  comes 
forward  on  the  horse,  the  prop  drags  into  the 
other  channel  of  the  hurter,  and  when  released  it 
all  falls  back  behind  the  sill,  prostrate  upon  the 
bed  of  the  stream.  In  some  such  dams,  but  not 
commonly  in  America,  there  are  used  "  tripping 
bars,"  devices  running  across  the  stream  through 
all  the  hurters  in  such  a  way  that  as  they  are 
twisted  or  pushed  along  they  automatically  trip 
and  release,  one  after  another,  the  several  props, 
and  thus  lower  the  dam  without  the  use  of  the 
bridge.  In  large  works,  however,  they  do  not 
commonly  operate  satisfactorily. 

In  a  navigable  stream  of  such  magnitude  as 
the  Ohio,  a  collapsible  dam  is  usually  made  in 

196 


THE  OHIO,  AND   CANALIZATION 

several  portions  separated  by  stone  abutments; 
and  these  several  parts  are  not  always  of  the  same 
mechanical  type.  The  principal  parts  beside  the 
lock  chamber  are  the  pass,  the  log  or  ice  chute, 
and  the  weir.  The  pass  is  the  navigable  high- 
water  channel.  In  it  the  longest  wickets,  resting 
on  the  deepest  sill,  are  used  in  order  that  the  full 
navigable  depth  may  be  obtained.  The  log  and 
ice  chute  is  frequently  a  beartrap,  as  explained 
before,  and  is  a  short  section  for  passing  through 
the  dam  floating  matter  which  it  is  injurious  to 
retain.  The  weir  is  the  regulating  part  of  the 
dam,  built  of  shorter  and  therefore  more  easily 
manipulated  wickets  than  the  pass,  and  often  in 
several  sections,  with  shorter  wickets  as  the  shore 
is  approached.  As  high  water  nears,  the  weir 
wickets  are  the  first  manipulated,  to  allow  an  in- 
creasing flow  through  the  dam ;  and  as  the  pool 
below  fills  up,  it  becomes  increasingly  easy  to 
lower  the  larger  wickets  of  the  pass. 

The  locks,  by  which  vessels  are  sent  around 
such  dams  at  low  stages,  consist  of  short  canals 
reaching  from  deep  water  above  to  deep  water 
below  the  obstruction,  and  in  this  canal,  usually 

197 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

between  concrete  walls,  a  portion  is  set  off  as  a 
chamber  by  gates  especially  constructed  to  with- 
stand a  head  from  the  upstream  side.  In  old  style 
locks  and  in  many  modern  ones  these  gates  are 
in  pairs,  closing  toward  each  other  and  meeting 
to  form  a  sort  of  arch,  upstream,  against  the 
pressure.  On  the  Ohio,  however,  where  the  locks 
are  100  feet  wide,  a  new  type  was  invented  to 
make  the  work  possible.  These  gates  are  large 
caissons,  sliding  in  and  out  from  a  recess  in  the 
walls  and  extending  unbroken  across  the  lock. 
By  conduits  underneath  the  floor  of  the  lock, 
and  by  means  of  gates  controlled  from  the  abut- 
ment, water  can  be  admitted  to  the  chamber  from 
the  upper  end  and  released  to  the  lower.  The 
chamber  being  full,  it  has  an  equal  height  with 
the  pool  above  the  dam.  The  upper  gate  being 
opened,  a  vessel  passes  in.  The  gate  being  then 
closed,  the  water  is  allowed  to  escape  to  the  lower 
pool,  the  vessel  sinks  to  that  level,  and  on  the 
lower  gate  being  opened  moves  out  to  the  lower 
reach.  These  locks  on  the  Ohio  are  the  widest  at 
present  in  operation,  but  not  the  longest,  being 
100  by  600  feet. 

198 


CHANOINE  WICKETS,  OHIO  RIVER,  DAM  NO.  13,  SHOWING  THE 
SUPPORTING  MECHANISM  AND  SILL  WHILE  IN  COFFER 


DAM  AND  LOCK  ON  THE  MONONGAHELA 


THE  OHIO,  AND  CANALIZATION 

The  plan  of  constructing  a  deep  channel  in  the 
Ohio  by  this  means  was  officially  recommended, 
as  I  have  said,  in  1875,  by  Majors  Weitzel  and 
Merrill.  Their  report  accompanying  the  recom- 
mendation was  one  of  the  most  complete  docu- 
ments of  the  sort  ever  filed  in  the  War  Depart- 
ment, for  they  had  studied  European  rivers  and 
their  dams  with  the  closest  scrutiny.  Their  recom- 
mendation, had  it  been  acted  upon,  would  have 
given  us  what  we  shall  long  lack,  a  navigable 
Ohio  ;  for  they  proposed  that  the  steep  stretch  be- 
tween Wheeling  and  Pittsburg  be  taken  in  hand 
at  once,  thirteen  locks  (the  necessary  number) 
be  constructed  the  first  year,  and  thirteen  dams 
the  next  two  years.  In  four  years,  or  by  1880, 
the  work  would  have  been  done,  the  advantage 
of  large  contracts  secured,  and  the  stream  opened. 

Caution,  however,  carried  the  day  against  the 
project.  The  Davis  Island  dam,  number  1  of  the 
series,  was  constructed  as  an  experiment,  re- 
quiring many  years  of  sluggish  effort.  Since 
1885  it  has  made  a  harbor  for  Pittsburg,  and 
has  proven  entirely  satisfactory,  in  principle, 
though  it  has  been  several  times  modified  for 

199 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

experiment  and  in  response  to  the  demands  of 
commerce.  In  recent  years  the  dams  have  been 
ordered,  one  by  one,  until  now  nearly  all  of  the 
original  thirteen  have  been  ordered,  six  or  seven 
are  done,  and  some  are  nearly  done.  Below 
Wheeling  the  plan  has  been  adopted  of  erecting 
first  the  dams  below  the  mouths  of  tributaries, 
to  back  pools  up  into  those  streams;  and  below 
large  cities  to  make  harbors,  as  at  Cincinnati.  In 
all,  about  twenty  dams  have  been  authorized  or 
surveyed  for.  In  the  course  of  this  work  the 
depth  sought  has  been  increased  from  six  feet 
to  nine,  the  lock- walls  have  been  raised,  and  the 
outgrown  pass  wickets  of  the  old  dams  have  been 
handed  on  to  make  the  weirs  of  the  new.  In  the 
end,  when  the  Ohio  is  entirely  slack- watered, 
there  will  be  required  between  sixty-five  and 
seventy-five  of  these  dams.  It  was  at  first  esti- 
mated that  they  could  be  built,  including  locks, 
for  $750,000  each;  but  experience  has  demon- 
strated that  the  cost  runs  well  over  a  million,  and 
it  is  safe  to  count  on  $1,250,000  at  each  site 
before  they  are  completely  done.  This  can  be 
considerably  reduced  if  many  are  built  at  the 

200 


THE  OHIO,  AND  CANALIZATION 

same  time.  The  latest  estimate  made  by  the 
engineers  calls  for  $63,000,000  to  complete  the 
project;  and  it  is  probable  that  at  the  outside 
$75,000,000  will  see  the  Ohio  with  its  channel 
cleared  and  regularized  and  canalized  from  Pitts- 
burg  to  Cairo.  Our  bill  against  the  main  stream 
of  the  Ohio  to  the  present  time  is  approximately 
$22,000,000. 

With  a  long  series  of  dams  ordered  or  in 
place,  and  with  the  nine-foot  survey  completed, 
the  Inland  Waterways  Commission  has  now  been 
called  upon  to  consider  a  new  report  on  a  gen- 
eral reservoir  system  put  forward  by  Mr.  W.  0. 
Leighton,  Chief  Hydrographer.  This  plan  is  an 
enlargement  of  Ellet's,  by  the  terms  of  which 
storage  is  to  be  provided  not  only  above  the 
forks,  but  on  the  Cumberland,  the  Tennessee, 
and  all  the  smaller  streams,  in  a  hundred  or 
more  immense  reservoirs  of  such  a  great  capa- 
city that  they  will  hold  in  emergency  a  whole 
year's  flow  of  the  river,  five  thousand  billion 
feet.  The  same  objections  to  the  use  of  the  old 
reservoir  sites  still  maintain;  but  their  added 
value  is  now  partly  offset  by  the  necessity  of 

201 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

storing  and  developing  all  the  horse-power  of 
these  flood  waters,  in  order  to  supplement  our 
remaining  supplies  of  coal.  The  bed  of  the  Ohio 
is  so  steep  that  to  try  to  maintain  nine-foot  navi- 
gation in  an  open  channel  above  Huntingdon, 
West  Virginia,  would  be  useless.  The  swift  cur- 
rent would  be  too  great  for  navigation.  To  that 
point,  even  if  storage  is  adopted,  dams  must  be 
used.  But  the  plan  presented  to  the  commission 
looks  to  an  open  river  most  of  the  way,  the  main- 
tenance of  a  steady  flow,  and  the  prevention  of 
disastrous  overflows.  It  will  be,  of  course,  eked 
out  with  generous  tree-planting  on  the  now  bar- 
ren mountain-sides. 

This  problem  involves  the  development  of 
large  water-powers.  An  additional  feature  of  the 
Ohio  improvement  is  the  problem  of  the  utiliza- 
tion of  power  at  the  movable  dam  sites.  When 
all  these  dams  are  raised  to  the  nine-foot  stage, 
there  will  be  at  low  seasons,  and  all  the  year 
during  a  steady  flow,  a  great  power  developable. 
This  will  probably,  however,  not  become  economi- 
cally possible  until  power  becomes  more  valuable 
than  it  is  to-day. 

202 


THE   OHIO,  AND  CANALIZATION 

Yet  with  the  development  of  the  forests  of 
Pennsylvania  and  West  Virginia,  and  with  the 
establishment  of  great  storage  dams,  the  ten- 
dency to  drown  out  these  dams  and  to  give 
them  almost  no  overflow  at  low  water  will  be  de- 
creased. The  period  during  which  they  stand 
will  be  lengthened,  and  in  the  end  it  may  be- 
come possible  to  replace  them  with  permanent 
dams  offering  continual  water-power ;  or,  at  least, 
to  develop  from  these  movable  dams  a  power 
which  will  be  available  at  least  three  hundred 
days  in  the  year. 

The  Ohio  River  is  not  leveed  as  is  the  Lower 
Mississippi,  and  the  flood  problem  is  a  serious 
one,  becoming  to  the  mill  towns  more  serious  as 
the  wealth  of  the  valley  increases.  In  most  places 
the  width  to  which  it  can  overflow  is  so  slight  that 
there  is  not,  except  in  the  case  of  big  cities,  suffi- 
cient taxable  property  endangered  to  support  a 
levee  system.  Reservoiring  will  largely  diminish 
this  danger,  and  save  the  valley  probably  several 
million  dollars  every  year. 

Just  as  it  is  in  itself  one  of  the  principal  tribu- 
taries of  the  Mississippi,  so  the  Ohio  forms  the 

203 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

backbone  of  a  smaller  system  of  rivers,  some  of 
which  rank  well  with  the  largest  in  Europe.  Of 
these  the  chief  in  length  and  volume  are  the 
Tennessee  and  the  Cumberland,  which  flow  into 
it  on  parallel  courses  near  its  mouth.  These  are 
two  of  a  large  number  of  streams  draining  the 
Appalachians  on  the  western  slope.  In  common 
with  the  other  streams  of  this  region,  they  will 
in  time  be  improved  by  forestation  on  the  high- 
lands and  by  the  establishment  of  reservoirs. 
They  are  streams  of  great  water-power  possibili- 
ties, and  when  improved  completely  will  furnish 
navigation  from  their  mouths  well  up  into  the 
mountains  in  which  they  have  their  origin.  Work 
on  the  improvement  of  these  rivers  for  the  pur- 
pose of  navigation  has  been  carried  on  for  about 
forty  years,  and  in  that  time  locks  and  canals 
have  been  established  on  the  Tennessee,  around 
a  long  series  of  rapids  and  shoals  through  north- 
ern Alabama.  This  improvement  limits  the  size  of 
vessels  which  can  now  navigate  the  stream.  The 
development  of  water-power  has,  however,  given 
a  new  turn  to  the  manner  of  treating  the  river, 
and  before  many  years  have  elapsed  the  canal  will 

204 


THE   OHIO,  AND   CANALIZATION 

be  paralleled  by  a  river  thoroughly  developed  by 
dam  and  pool  for  deep  and  wide  vessels.  This  sec- 
tion of  the  Tennessee  flows  through  the  iron  and 
milling  country  of  northern  Alabama,  and  main- 
tains a  heavy  traffic.  The  traffic,  however,  is 
small  below  there  because  of  irregularities  in  de- 
velopment. When  the  present  plans  have  been 
carried  out,  steamboats  drawing  five  feet  can  pass 
up  the  Tennessee  to  Chattanooga,  and  drawing 
three  feet  can  ascend  a  considerable  distance 
above  Knoxville.  Eighteen-inch  navigation  will 
eventually  extend  a  long  distance  above  the 
present  head  of  navigation. 

The  Cumberland  is  also  being  improved,  by 
locks  and  dams,  to  a  five-foot  depth,  but  by  one 
of  the  inexplicable  mistakes  of  government  is 
blocked  by  locks  five  feet  narrower  and  eight 
feet  shorter  than  those  of  the  Tennessee,  so  that 
boats  built  for  the  latter  river  cannot  use  it.  The 
Cumberland  is  now  navigable  for  a  considerable 
distance  above  Nashville,  at  fair  stages  of  the 
river,  and  will  eventually  offer  an  outlet  for  the 
coal  of  the  region  from  Burnside  to  Jellico.  Some 
of  its  tributaries,  as  the  Green  River,  the  Rough, 

205 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

and  the  Barren,  are  also  improved  by  locks  and 
dams. 

Higher  up,  the  Ohio  receives  the  Kentucky 
River,  on  which  navigation  is  provided  by  a  long 
series  of  locks  and  dams,  offering  an  outlet  for 
the  coal  lands  of  the  interior  of  the  state;  the 
Big  Sandy,  which  with  its  Tug  and  Levisa  forks 
is  improved  with  needle  dams  and  locks ;  the 
Kanawha  and  the  Little  Kanawha,  coal-bearing 
rivers  similarly  treated;  and,  at  its  head,  the 
Monongahela  and  the  Allegheny,  both  slack- 
watered  streams,  and  both  leading  from  rich 
manufacturing  and  coal  producing  streams.  On 
its  right  the  Ohio  first  receives  the  Beaver  River, 
which  is  being  turned  into  a  canal  to  connect  the 
Ohio  with  Lake  Erie.  Below  this,  the  principal 
navigable  tributary  is  the  slack-watered  Muskin- 
gum.  The  White  and  the  Wabash  offer  inlets 
into  Indiana  and  Illinois,  but  though  considerable 
sums  have  been  spent  upon  them,  neither  has 
been  systematically  taken  in  hand,  and  neither  is 
now  commercially  navigable.  Yet  on  all  these 
rivers  the  new  hydro-electric  developments  and 
the  new  conservation  knowledge  indicate  an  early 

206 


THE  OHIO,  AND   CANALIZATION 

day  of  commercial  utilization.  It  is  estimated  by 
Mr.  Leighton  that  i£  the  designated  reservoirs  in 
the  Appalachians  be  built,  the  streams  tributary 
to  the  Ohio  in  that  region  will  increase  their 
commercial  horse-power  more  than  3,000,000 
horse,  if  the  reservoired  store  is  used  for  twelve 
months,  or  6,000,000  if  it  is  drawn  on  only  six 
months  each  year. 


CHAPTER  X 

LAKES-TO-THE-GULF 

FROM  the  earliest  days  of  the  exploration  of 
the  West,  from  the  time  of  La  Salle  and 
Marquette  down  through  the  succeeding  gener- 
ations of  French  and  Spanish  and  English  and 
American  explorers,  there  have  never  been  lack- 
ing those  who  sought  to  connect  by  navigable 
channels  the  waters  flowing  into  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  with  those  flowing  into  the  St.  Lawrence 
River.  It  was  by  a  route  easily  opened  that  Mar- 
quette himself  first  reached  the  Mississippi,  pass- 
ing from  Green  Bay  up  the  Fox  River,  and  by 
way  of  a  flooded  portage  into  the  Wisconsin 
River,  and  so  down  to  the  site  of  the  modern  city 
of  Prairie  du  Chien.  It  was  by  another  portage 
that  he  returned  to  the  Lakes,  coming  up  the 
Illinois  River  to  its  forks,  thence  following  the 
Des  Plaines  to  a  depression  in  the  hills  which  has 
since  come  to  be  known  as  the  Chicago  Divide, 
and  there  camping  near  a  low  flooded  prairie  by 

208 


LAKES-TO-THE-GULF 

which  his  boats  crossed  to  the  Chicago  Kiver  and 
Lake  Michigan.  By  still  another  route  La  Salle 
made  at  least  one  of  his  journeys,  crossing  from 
what  is  now  called  Sag  to  the  Calumet  River,  and 
on  another  journey  he  entered  the  St.  Joseph 
River,  and,  ascending  that  to  a  point  near  the  pre- 
sent city  of  South  Bend,  crossed  a  short  portage 
to  the  Kankakee,  and  so  descended  to  the  Illinois. 
A  favorite  route  with  some  of  the  coureurs  de 
boiSy  and  one  which  was  followed  probably  by 
Membre  and  some  of  the  other  early  mission- 
aries, was  by  way  of  the  Brule  River  from  Lake 
Superior,  and  from  its  headwaters  down  the  St. 
Croix  to  the  Mississippi ;  and  still  another  easy 
route  was  by  the  ascent  of  the  St.  Louis,  and  a 
portage  by  a  series  of  ponds  over  to  the  Upper 
Mississippi  itself  near  its  great  bend. 

There  were  as  many  more  easy  connections 
between  the  two  water  systems  farther  east,  by 
way  of  the  Maumee  and  the  Wabash,  the  Maumee 
and  the  Miami,  the  Cuyahoga  and  the  Muskin- 
gum,  and  easternmost  of  all  by  the  Beaver  and 
the  Grand.  Of  them  all,  the  most  direct,  the  most 
natural,  and  the  most  promising  was,  and  still  is, 

209 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

that  through  the  Chicago  Divide  which  Marquette 
commented  on,  and  through  which  La  Salle  deter- 
mined to  open  a  canal  for  bateaux.  This  route 
par  excellence  is  referred  to  now  when  one  speaks 
of  the  route  "  from  the  Lakes  to  the  Gulf."  But 
in  the  century  during  which  our  waters  have  been 
developed,  many  of  the  minor  routes  have  been 
opened  by  small  canals,  some  of  which  will  a 
century  hence  doubtless  be  large  factors  in  our 
transportation;  and  the  Beaver-Grand  route  is 
now  being  cut  through  by  a  twelve-foot  barge 
canal,  to  bring  Pittsburg  in  touch  with  the  iron 
ore  traffic  of  Lake  Erie. 

To  begin  at  the  most  northern  of  all  these 
proposed  channels,  the  route  from  Duluth  to  the 
Upper  Mississippi  by  way  of  the  St.  Louis  Elver 
has  several  times  been  surveyed,  and  estimates 
have  been  made  of  the  cost  of  a  six-foot  barge 
canal  of  the  old  type.  The  purpose  of  this  water- 
way, of  course,  is  to  give  St.  Paul  and  Minne- 
apolis direct  water  connection  with  the  Lakes. 
Minneapolis  produces  about  fifteen  million  barrels 
of  flour  annually,  the  greater  part  of  which  goes 
east  by  the  Lakes,  which  are  now  reached  by  rail. 

210 


LAKES-TO-THE-GULF 

The  cities  are  also  the  gathering  depots  for  an 
immense  amount  of  wheat  which  is  on  its  way 
east ;  and  they  are  not  only  heavy  consumers  of 
coal,  but  are  distributing  depots  for  coal  to  the 
Northwest.  In  addition,  package  freight  of  all 
sorts  moves  in  large  volume  between  these  cities 
and  the  Lakes. 

A  barge  canal  connecting  these  points  by  way 
of  the  Upper  Mississippi  and  the  St.  Louis 
would  require  an  ascent  of  nearly  600  feet  from 
Lake  Superior  to  Summit  level,  and  a  consider- 
able descent  on  the  other  side,  accomplished,  how- 
ever, chiefly  in  the  Mississippi.  Such  a  channel 
would  be  closed  by  ice  from  the  1st  of  November, 
or  the  end  of  that  month  at  latest,  until  the 
middle  or  end  of  April.  During  the  remainder 
of  the  year  it  would  accomplish  a  great  deal  in 
relieving  traffic  conditions  of  the  Northwest. 
Unfortunately  the  enormous  water-power  of  the 
St.  Louis,  which  should  have  been  conserved  in 
any  development  of  this  route,  has  passed  into 
corporate  hands ;  and  nearly  all  that  of  the  Upper 
Mississippi  has  also  been  alienated ;  the  drainage 
problems  of  northern  Minnesota,  however,  are 

211 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

large,  and  could  easily  be  made  tributary  to  such 
a  commercial  development. 

The  route  by  the  Fox  and  the  Wisconsin  has 
always  been  one  to  draw  the  attention  and  to 
arouse  the  imagination.  In  the  early  years  of 
Western  settlement  a  private  company  was  incor- 
porated to  develop  navigation  this  way  by  means 
of  a  lock  and  dam  system  on  the  Upper  and 
Lower  Fox,  and  a  canal  connecting  the  upper 
part  of  the  stream  with  the  Wisconsin  at  Portage. 
After  the  company  had  expended  considerable 
sums  the  general  government  took  over  the  work, 
and  spent  in  all  something  more  than  $4,000,000 
upon  it.  The  result  was,  as  far  as  river  improve- 
ment for  navigation  is  concerned,  a  total  failure. 
This  failure  was  one  of  method  rather  than  one 
inherent  in  the  route.  In  the  first  place,  the 
rapid  deforestation  of  Wisconsin  caused  the  river 
which  bears  that  name  to  become  filled  with  sand 
swept  in  from  the  deforested  areas,  giving  rise 
to  shifting  obstructions,  which  no  reasonable 
amount  of  dredging  could  keep  cleared  away. 
The  deforestation  caused  the  water  supply  of  the 
stream  to  become  so  unreliable  that  heavy  floods 

212 


LAKES-TO-THE-GULF 

in  spring  time  were  followed  by  almost  complete 
drouth  in  the  summer  and  fall,  in  which  no  steam- 
boat channel  even  of  two-foot  depth  could  be 
maintained.  The  canal  which  connected  with  the 
Fox  was  a  small  affair,  and  there  was  no  type  of 
steamboat  of  such  peculiar  structure  that,  being 
at  the  same  time  narrow  enough  for  the  canal 
and  shallow  enough  for  the  river,  it  could  profit- 
ably carry  cargo.  As  a  result,  the  government 
some  years  ago  abandoned  the  Wisconsin  as  a  nav- 
igable stream,  and  looked  upon  the  sum  therein 
invested  as  a  total  loss.  The  Lower  Fox,  how- 
ever, remains  a  stream  in  successful  use,  and  the 
many  dams  which  cross  it  furnish  some  of  the 
greatest  water-powers  in  Wisconsin. 

The  various  connections  which  the  canal-build- 
ing epoch  of  the  forties  and  earlier  years  saw 
constructed  through  Indiana  and  Ohio,  notably 
the  Maumee-Wabash-Miami  and  the  Cuyahoga- 
Muskingum  routes,  do  not  properly  come  up  for 
consideration  within  a  volume  upon  river  con- 
trol. With  the  exception  of  a  few  short  reaches 
in  which  the  river-bed  was  used,  notably  ninety 
miles  of  the  Lower  Muskingum,  they  were  essen- 

213 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

tially  canal  construction,  presenting  no  differences 
or  advantages  over  other  long  inland  canals  of 
their  type,  —  shallow  and  providing  only  for 
small  barges  carrying  about  250  tons  each.  Each 
route  required  something  like  600  feet  of  eleva- 
tion, making  passage  long  and  tedious,  and  each 
has  been  gradually  abandoned  with  the  decrease 
of  water  transportation  in  general.  With  a  revival 
of  this  mode  of  transit,  each  route  offers  the  pos- 
sibility of  ultimately  becoming  an  economical 
carrier  of  considerable  larger  size  than  at  present 
exists. 

The  route  by  way  of  the  Beaver  valley,  from 
its  confluence  with  the  Ohio  just  below  Pittsburg, 
and  the  Mahoning  to  Niles,  and  thence  by  canal 
through  the  divide  to  the  Grand  Kiver  or  some 
one  of  its  branches,  has  lately  come  into  promi- 
nence through  the  granting  of  a  charter  by  Con- 
gress, under  the  terms  of  which  a  private  corpo- 
ration is  constructing  the  channel  and  is  allowed 
to  charge  toll  upon  it.  This  corporation  has  been 
allowed  to  do  many  of  the  things  which  the  gov- 
ernment engineers  will  ultimately  require  to  do 
in  preparing  streams,  that  is  to  say,  to  provide 

214 


LAKES-TO-THE-GULF 

for  storage,  and  to  develop  the  water-power  inci- 
dental to  their  work.  For  this  purpose  they  may 
enter  upon  the  route  with  right  of  eminent  do- 
main, and  may  construct  —  and  are  constructing 
— a  channel  in  the  Beaver  by  means  of  locks  and 
dams,  not  less  than  12  feet  in  depth  and  150  in 
width.  A  new  harbor  is  to  be  constructed  on  the 
shore  of  Lake  Erie,  not  far  from  Ashtabula,  and 
large  terminals  erected  for  the  transfer  of  freight. 
The  company  has  the  right  to  construct  a  second 
navigable  canal  up  the  Shenango  to  Sharon  in 
Pennsylvania,  and  to  divert  stored  flood  water 
from  the  Allegheny  at  Franklin,  Pennsylvania, 
for  summit  level. 

The  real  purpose  of  this  canal  is  of  course  to 
connect  Pittsburg  with  Lake  Erie,  and  to  cut  still 
one  more  charge  out  of  the  freight  bill  on  iron 
ore  from  the  mines  to  the  mills.  At  the  same 
time  it  will  reduce  the  coal  shipping  bill  from 
Pittsburg  to  the  upper  lakes.  In  connection  with 
the  Erie  Canal  and  the  improved  Ohio,  it  will 
offer  eventually  a  nine-foot  barge  route  from  New 
York  City  to  St.  Louis  and  New  Orleans,  and  an 
inland  passage  of  much  importance  from  the 

215 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

northeastern  interior  to  the  gateway  to  the  Pan- 
ama Canal. 

In  this  regard,  however,  and  in  its  general  use- 
fulness, it  is  outstripped  by  the  proposed  fourteen- 
foot  waterway  by  way  of  the  Chicago  Divide. 
Chicago  stands  in  a  depression  in  the  rocky  rim 
of  the  Great  Lakes,  at  a  point  where  the  waters 
of  Lake  Michigan  once  poured  out  by  what  is 
now  the  Des  Plaines  and  the  Illinois  River  to  the 
Mississippi.  Tilting  of  the  plane  or  recession  of 
the  waters  has  changed  this  outlet,  but  the  de- 
pression still  remains  so  low  that  in  high  water 
canoes  and  bateaux  have  been  floated  over  it,  and 
in  making  the  present  cut  through  it  there  was 
in  no  place  any  earth  encountered  more  than 
fifteen  feet  high  above  the  standard  elevation  of 
Lake  Michigan.  Unlike  the  other  routes  sug- 
gested, therefore,  this  one  requires  elevation  by 
lockage  on  one  side  only,  coming  toward  the 
Lakes,  the  transfer  being  one  from  a  summit  level 
at  one  end  to  a  bottom  level  at  the  other.  The 
question  of  water  supply  is  solved  by  the  fact 
that  the  summit  is  Lake  Michigan. 

The  Chicago  Divide  is  about  thirty  miles  across 
216 


LAKES-TO-THE-GULF 

from  the  shores  of  Lake  Michigan  to  the  point 
where  the  land  drops  abruptly  away  into  the 
valley  of  the  Des  Plaines  and  of  the  Mississippi. 
Part  of  the  way,  on  the  lake  side,  this  is  made  up 
of  clay  and  of  glacial  drift ;  but  for  a  large  part 
it  is  a  clear,  soft  limestone,  easily  worked  and, 
when  removed,  of  good  marketable  quality  for 
concrete,  for  building,  for  the  manufacture  of 
lime,  and  for  a  flux  with  iron  ore.  As  early  as 
1817  a  canal  through  the  divide  was  proposed, 
some  years  before  the  federal  government  had 
bought  the  site  of  the  present  city  from  the  In- 
dians. And  in  1826,  before  Chicago  was  more 
than  a  tiny  collection  of  hovels,  Congress  passed 
a  canal  bill,  providing  that  alternate  sections  of 
public  land  in  a  ten-mile  strip  might  be  sold  by 
Illinois  to  pay  for  the  construction  through  them 
of  the  " Illinois  and  Michigan"  canal. 

Under  this  enabling  act,  which  owed  its  pas- 
sage to  a  tie-dissolving  ballot  by  John  C.  Calhoun, 
then  president  of  the  Senate,  Illinois  eventually 
undertook  the  work,  and  in  1846-47  completed 
a  small  canal,  providing  for  four-foot  navigation, 
from  La  Salle  on  the  Illinois  to  the  Chicago  River 

217 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

at  Bridgeport,  about  96  miles.  This  canal  had 
a  summit  some  distance  above  Lake  Michigan, 
which  must  be  supplied  by  pumping.  Gradually 
in  succeeding  years  this  little  canal  was  rebuilt 
and  enlarged  until  it  provided  for  vessels  six  feet 
deep  and  carrying  about  250  tons  each.  In  this 
condition,  in  the  years  immediately  succeeding 
the  war,  it  carried  an  enormous  traffic,  and  was 
one  of  the  chief  elements  in  building  up  Chicago 
and  St.  Louis,  and  in  solving  the  early  problems 
of  getting  to  market  the  grain  of  the  newly 
opened  West.  In  a  single  year  the  canal  tolls 
amounted  to  more  than  $300,000.  Soon,  how- 
ever, the  canal  began  to  find  itself  unable  to 
compete  with  the  railways,  and  in  the  years  fol- 
lowing 1880,  and  especially  1890,  it  has  fallen 
into  disuse  and  disrepair. 

Ever  since  1871  Chicago  has  been  sending 
down  this  old  canal  a  great  volume  of  sewage 
drawn  from  the  south  branch  of  the  river,  into 
which  the  sewers  of  most  of  the  city  drain.  As 
even  this  outlet  was  inadequate  and  sewage  still 
ran  into  the  lake,  Chicago's  citizens  began,  some 
time  before  1890,  to  agitate  for  a  new  canal  to 

218 


LAKES-TO-THE-GULF 

carry  away  all  the  sewage  and,  by  preventing  con- 
tamination of  the  lake,  to  reduce  the  deaths  from 
typhoid,  then  a  terrible  scourge  in  the  city. 
Though  it  appeared  to  be  the  ultimate  solution 
of  this  matter  to  build  a  sewage  disposal  system, 
far-sighted  business  men  directed  sentiment  in 
such  a  way  that  the  public  voted  for  and  author- 
ized a  deep  ship  and  sanitary  canal,  extending 
through  the  rock  barrier  to  the  valley  of  the 
Des  Plaines.  This  was  begun,  carried  swiftly  to 
completion,  and  by  1899  offered  a  channel  162 
feet  wide  in  rock  and  200  in  earth,  24  feet  deep 
at  all  points,  from  the  Chicago  River  to  a  spill- 
way in  the  valley  of  the  Des  Plaines.  The  work  as 
then  completed  cost  the  city  about  $35,000,000. 
From  that  time  to  the  present  Chicago,  with 
the  assistance  of  the  entire  valley,  has  labored 
for  government  aid  to  extend  this  canal  as  a 
fourteen-foot  ship  canal  to  the  Mississippi,  and 
so  to  New  Orleans  and  the  Gulf.  Congress  has 
authorized,  and  the  engineers  have  carried  out, 
surveys  showing  the  cost  and  practical  character 
of  the  extension  as  far  as  St.  Louis,  and  more 
recently  it  has  received  the  approval  of  President 

219 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

Roosevelt.  It  is  entirely  probable  that  in  the  new 
era  of  waterway  development  it  will  be  one  of 
the  first  projects  carried  out. 

The  scheme  for  this  waterway  as  at  first  out- 
lined provided  for  an  extension  of  the  canal  from 
its  present  terminus  through  the  city  of  Joliet,  by 
canal  and  locks,  to  the  Des  Plaines  River  in  Lake 
Joliet.  Thence  it  was  to  follow  the  bed  of  the 
stream,  cleared  of  rocks  and  deepened  by  dam- 
ming, to  its  confluence  with  the  Fox  at  Ottawa, 
and  thence  to  follow  the  Illinois  to  the  Missis- 
sippi. The  plan  further  contemplated,  and  with 
this  amendment  is  reported  to  Congress,  a  dam 
across  the  Mississippi  at  Alton,  just  above  the 
Missouri,  to  deepen  that  stream  to  fourteen  feet, 
and  for  a  canal  thence  around  the  Missouri  mouth, 
on  the  Illinois  side,  about  eighteen  miles  to  a 
point  just  above  the  Merchant's  Bridge  in  St. 
Louis.  From  there  the  Mississippi  is  to  be  devel- 
oped to  fourteen  feet  by  the  methods  herein- 
before described. 

Since  this  plan  was  outlined  many  changes 
have  been  brought  about  in  the  general  water- 
way situation,  and  especially  in  the  relation  be- 

220 


LAKES-TO-THE-GULF 

tween  waterways  and  water-powers,  which  have 
done  much  both  to  retard  and  to  accelerate  it. 
The  river  into  which  the  Sanitary  Canal  empties 
itself  is  not  only  very  variable,  but  in  summer 
time  extremely  shoal,  and  flows  in  a  steep  and 
rocky  bed.  The  question  of  water  supply  solves 
itself  because  of  the  peculiar  nature  of  the  Chi- 
cago Sanitary  Canal,  which  is  primarily  for  sewage 
dilution,  and  which  therefore  is  designed  to  pro- 
vide, without  interfering  with  navigation,  a  flow 
of  10,000  cubic  second  feet  of  water  from  Lake 
Michigan.  The  addition  of  this  amount  of  water 
to  the  Des  Plaines  gives  it  enough,  even  in  lowest 
stages,  for  the  development  of  fourteen-foot  and 
even  eighteen-foot  navigation.  This  navigation 
must  be  accomplished  in  the  rocky  river,  how- 
ever, by  the  use  of  large  dams,  and  a  channel  in 
the  river-bed  cut  out  of  solid  rock  and  forming 
practically  a  canal,  with  short  canals  around 
several  falls. 

From  the  end  of  the  Sanitary  Canal  at  Lock- 
port  to  the  level  of  the  Illinois  River  at  TJtica 
there  is  a  descent  of  147  feet,  the  greater  part 
of  which  is  accomplished  at  Joliet,  and  the  rest 

221 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

of  which  can  be  concentrated  principally  at  Mar- 
seilles and  Utica.  In  normal  conditions  the  powers 
at  these  sites  have  been  hardly  worth  developing, 
but  with  the  added  flow  from  the  Chicago  chan- 
nel they  have  become  extremely  valuable,  notably 
that  at  the  so-called  "  dam  number  one  "  in  Joliet, 
where  a  variable  700  horse-power  was  turned  into 
a  reliable  power  of  10,000  horse.  Grasping  the 
value  of  this  power  too  late,  —  for  its  develop- 
ment should  have  been  from  the  first  one  of  the 
chief  objectives  of  the  canal  construction,  —  the 
authorities  of  Chicago  and  those  of  Illinois  are 
now  working  together  to  devise  and  put  into 
operation  some  scheme  by  which  they  may  regain 
control  and  develop  these  powers,  using  the  in- 
come derived  therefrom  to  pay  off  the  bonds  on 
the  whole  investment.  The  power  here  is  ex- 
tremely valuable,  the  manufacturing  sites  along 
the  way  have  the  double  value  of  water  trans- 
portation in  both  directions  and  the  trunk  line 
railways  of  Chicago  reaching  everywhere,  and  it 
is  probable  that  the  waterway,  as  it  develops,  will 
become  the  site  of  one  of  the  greatest  manufac- 
turing districts  in  the  country. 

222 


THE  LOCK  AT  HENRY,  ILLINOIS  RIVER 


CHICAGO  SANITARY  AND  SHIP  CANAL 


LAKES-TO-THE-GULF 

From  Chicago  to  La  Salle  is  a  little  less  than 
100  miles.  From  La  Salle  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Illinois  is  more  than  twice  the  distance ;  but  in  it 
there  is  practically  no  rock  to  be  encountered. 
The  Illinois  is  a  river  of  gentle  slope  and  of  con- 
siderable breadth,  and  retains  the  contour  of  its 
bottom  and  the  stability  of  its  banks  better  than 
any  other  stream  of  its  size  and  character  in  the 
country.  Before  the  construction  of  the  Chicago 
channel  it  had  been  improved  by  means  of  grad- 
ual appropriations  extending  over  about  forty 
years,  by  which  the  state  constructed  two  dams 
and  the  federal  authorities  two  dams  across  it, 
with  a  lock  75  by  350  feet  at  each  dam.  These 
dams  have  been  lowered  since  the  Sanitary  flow 
was  turned  on,  and  are  now  probably  unneces- 
sary to  maintain  the  seven-foot  navigation  which 
the  Illinois  supports  at  all  stages.  The  bottom  is 
of  such  character,  however,  that  it  can  be  easily 
dredged,  and  of  the  total  cost  which  will  be  re- 
presented by  the  deep  waterway  when  complete, 
only  a  small  portion  is  for  dredging  to  fourteen 
feet  from  La  Salle  to  Grafton. 

Before  the  Civil  War,  as  the  Northwest  de- 
223 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

veloped,  there  began  to  be  agitation  for  a  water- 
way connecting  the  Illinois  at  La  Salle  with  the 
Upper  Mississippi  at  Rock  Island.  At  first  the 
plans  were  for  a  ship  canal  seven  feet  deep  and 
wide  enough  for  upper  river  steamboats.  During 
the  next  thirty-five  years  several  surveys  were 
made  of  this  route,  by  way  of  Bureau  Creek  to 
the  summit,  and  thence  by  Hickory  Creek  and 
Green  River  to  Rock  River,  and  so  to  the  Missis- 
sippi. The  canal  was  finally  undertaken  under 
the  name  of  the  "  Illinois  and  Mississippi,"  or,  as 
it  is  more  commonly  called,  the  "Hennepin" 
Canal,  and  was  dragged  slowly  to  completion,  the 
water  being  admitted  to  it  in  1907,  after  an  ex- 
penditure of  about  $7,000,000.  The  canal  as 
completed  rises  abruptly  out  of  the  valley  of  the 
Illinois,  in  a  series  of  locks  aggregating  more 
than  150  feet,  and  descends  more  than  90  feet 
on  the  other  side.  It  is  but  7  feet  deep,  and  its 
locks  are  but  30  feet  wide.  Though  it  may  in 
time  develop  some  use  as  a  feeder  for  the  larger 
waterways,  it  is  built  upon  lines  which  were  out- 
grown about  the  time  the  first  survey  was  made, 
forty  or  fifty  years  ago. 

224 


LAKES-TO-THE-GULF 

The  total  expenditure  upon  the  Chicago  Sani- 
tary Canal,  the  Illinois  River,  and  the  Hennepin 
Canal  route  to  date  is  as  follows :  — 

Whole  cost  to  date,  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal  $13,000,000 
Cost  of  all  Sanitary  Canal  Work  .  .  .  50,000,000 
Illinois  River  (state  and  nation)  .  .  3,000,000 
Hennepin  Canal 7,500,000 

$73,500,000 

The  estimated  additional  cost  of  the  fourteen- 
foot  waterway  from  Chicago  to  St.  Louis  is 
$30,097,462,  of  which  Illinois  has  agreed  to  pro- 
vide $20,000,000. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  TRIBUTARIES 

T71NGKOSSED  with  the  story  of  the  engi- 
JLJ  neering  development  and  the  prospect  of 
proper  conservation  of  our  streams,  I  have  not, 
up  to  this  point,  indicated  one  of  the  most  vital 
principles  upon  which  all  this  river  improvement 
work  should  be  based.  That  is  the  standard- 
ization of  all  the  channels,  according  to  their 
capacity  and  the  nature  and  demand  of  the  traf- 
fic which  they  are  to  bear.  This  has  been  the 
less  necessary  in  so  far  as  we  have  been  dealing 
with  the  main  streams,  because  our  projects  for 
these  are  all  based  upon  an  effort  to  obtain  from 
each  river  the  deepest  and  widest  channel  pos- 
sible. On  the  tributaries,  however,  and  especially 
on  those  which  are  developed  for  navigation  by 
other  than  open  channel  methods,  this  standard- 
ization becomes  of  the  utmost  importance. 

Before  projects  for  these  rivers  are  adopted, 
they  should  be  related  to  a  general  plan  of  im- 

226 


THE  TRIBUTARIES 

provement,  which  should  provide  certain  standard 
sizes  of  channel  and  of  opening  through  chan- 
nel obstructions.  Thus,  on  rivers  of  given  width 
and  depth,  all  the  locks  should  have  openings 
and  length  of  the  same  standard,  so  that  vessels 
might  ply  freely  from  one  to  another ;  and  any 
vessel  built  for  one  part  of  a  river  could  be  cer- 
tain of  finding  room  to  pass  anything  in  the 
lower  courses,  at  least,  of  the  same  stream. 

Such  a  standardization  requires  a  thorough 
survey  of  all  the  now  navigable  or  possibly  navi- 
gable streams,  with  a  view  to  our  new  knowledge 
of  the  possibilities  of  stored  water  and  steadied 
flows,  and  a  survey  of  the  probable  types  of 
traffic  which  will  be  served  by  the  stream.  These 
rivers  should  then  be  designated  as  Class  A,  Class 
B,  and  so  on,  each  class  representing  a  certain 
width  and  depth  of  channel,  each  river,  perhaps, 
having  different  classes  of  increasing  importance 
as  its  lower  reaches  were  approached.  It  should 
then  be  certain  that  a  vessel  navigating  upon  the 
upper  reaches  of  any  river  would  find  all  the  locks 
below  open  to  her,  and  that  a  steamboat  which 
was  employed  on  Class  B  rivers  in  Wisconsin  in 

227 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

summer  could  be  sent  with  positive  assurance  to 
some  Class  B  river  in  Louisiana  for  the  winter. 
Barges  of  standard  size,  then  employed  for  cargo, 
could  be  loaded  at  principal  ports,  with  assurance 
of  carrying  cargo  unbroken  to  destination. 

As  yet  no  such  measure  has  been  taken  in 
our  country,  and  there  has  not  been  prepared  any 
complete  survey  from  which  the  amount  of  navi- 
gable water  within  this  system  can  be  estimated 
accurately.  Several  governmental  departments 
having  authority  have  prepared  individual  esti- 
mates ;  and  a  more  accurate  report  has  been  made 
to  the  French  government  by  its  Minister  of 
Marine.  I  have,  however,  compiled  a  considerable 
table  of  these  waters  from  the  figures  given  in 
the  report  of  the  Chief  of  Engineers  for  1902, 
when  a  report  on  all  projects  was  made  to  Con- 
gress, revising  this  considerably  by  subsequent 
reports ;  and  have  compared  this  with  a  report 
made  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  some  years 
ago  by  Mr.  A.  D.  Anderson,  and  a  bulletin  pub- 
lished in  the  Tenth  Census,  the  work  of  a  Mr. 
Vivian.  The  guesses  of  these  at  times  exceed  the 
total  length  of  the  river  they  are  considering.  In 

228 


THE  TRIBUTARIES 

others,  their  errors  follow  upon  the  heels  o£ 
Humphreys  and  Abbot,  and  in  others  they  are 
the  steamboat-men's  easy  guesses.  I  present  them 
in  the  following  table,  together  with  the  total  ap- 
propriations to  June,  1906,  which  have  been  made 
for  these  rivers  as  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  col- 
lect the  figures,  with  which  I  have  included  the 
main  rivers :  — 


RlVEB. 

A 

B 

A  y-'iakJ 

£">&$, 
"Ml  /K 

D 

JeJvH*  /So  (» 

y 

'      Missouri   

3127 
2161 
1021 
986 
884 
779 
759 
609 
474 
384 
365 
303 
280 
295 
271 
270 

228 
213 
212 
200 
180 
175 
160 
160 
130 
123 

116 

110 
105 
94 
94 
92 
80 
80 
75 
64 

2915 
2134 
967 
1000 
771 
300 
650 
578 
300 
306 
183 
200 
261 
25 
144 
225 

173 
85 
100 
175 
285 
100 
62 

n 

180 

102 
261 

96 
130  (h) 

18 

2378 
2152     (a) 
965 
679 
463 
391 
652 
609 

300 
120 
200 
151 
37 
100 
223 

240 
138 
250 
227 
171     (e) 
180 

95 

112 
26 

2$  (i) 

131 
261 
90 
91 
81 

72 
240 
61 

$12,101,000.00 
102,796,924.47 
20,912,639.93 
2,749,637.00 
1,947,375.00 
1,188,215.00 
6,580,551.00 
3,277,000.00 
(b)           10,000.00 
1,166,954.00 
820,000.00 
687,600.00 
(c) 
140,500.00 

(*) 
2,346,650.00 
7,447,995.47 
jd)      1,774,500.00 

172,100.00 
660,673.20 
200,000.00 

(f)      3,748,914.93 
(g) 
(c) 
1,781,766.63 

(<1) 
5,814,596.13 
3,051,495.74 
4,421,437.00 
252  ,800.00 
(<0 

35,500.00 
(m) 

1 

land  2 
2audl 
1 
1 
2andl 
Iand2 
2 

2audl 
2 
2 
1 
land  2 
1 
2 

1 
1 
1 
2 
1 
1 
2 
1 
1 
2 

1 

2 
2 
2 

2 
1 

1 
1 

2 

Mississippi    .... 
Ohio     

Red  

White  

Tennessee     .... 
Cumberland  .... 
Yellowstone  .... 
Washita 

Wabash    .    .         .    . 

Boeuf  ..... 
Minnesota     .... 
Sunflower      .... 
Illinois      

Hennepin      .... 
Yazoo 

Bartholomew     .    .     . 
Black  (Ark.)     .    .    . 
Green  and  Barren  .    . 
St.  Francis    .... 
Tallahatchie      .    .     . 
Wisconsin      .... 
Cache  

Allegheny      .... 

Deer  Creek  .... 
Monongahela     .    .    . 
Kentucky      .... 
Kanawha  

Muskingum  .     .     .    .  ' 
Tensas 

Iowa    

BigHatchie.    .    .    . 
Rock    . 

229 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 


RIVER. 

A 

B 

C 

D 

E 

Black  (La.)  .... 
Chippewa  .... 
St  Croix 

61 
55 
57 

(n) 
57 
120 

52 

$161,750.00 
30  000  00 

1 

Big  Horn  
Clinch 

50 
50 

70 

126 

(o)         132  500  00 

1 

jLittleRed  .... 

Dauchite  
Obion 

49 
44 
35 
33 

90 
65 
65 

75 

15,000.00 
27  500  00 

1 

Forked  Deer  .  .  . 
Galena  .... 

10 

29     (p) 

36,500.00 
170  102  00 

1 

2 

Gasconade  .... 
Big  Sandy  .... 
Tug  Fork  .... 
Levisa  Fork  .... 
Elk  (W.  Va.)  .  .  . 
Gauley 

6 
87 
100 
86 
45 
27 

107 
26 
58 
88.5 
45 
12 

100,500.00 
1,302,020.00 

13 

1 
2 
2 
2 
1 

Guyandotte  .... 
Licking  (Ky.)  .  .  . 
Hiwassee  
Holston  . 

80 
90 
43 

18 
50 
35 
60 

21,500.00 
16,000.00 
(o) 
(o) 

1 
1 
1 
1 

French  Broad    .     . 
Rough  

90 

72 

29  5 

140,000.00 
105  500  00 

1 
2 

Little  Eanawha  .  . 
White  (Ind.)  .  .  . 
Tradewater  .... 
Bayou  LaFourche  .  . 
Bayou  Plaquemines  . 
Homochitto  .... 
Duck  River  .... 
Little  Tennessee  .  . 
Buckhannou  .  .  . 
Cheat  

27 
22 
110 
110 

67 
13 
48 
90 

48 
13 
41 
105 
30 
60 
68 
13 
24.5 
49 

378,418.00 
120,000.00 
16,500.00 
255,000.00 
1,775,000.00 
20,000.00 
(o) 
(o) 
5,500.00 
13  00000 

2 

1 

2andl 
2 
1 
1 
1 
1 
1 

Yallabusha    .... 
Other  Yazoo  waters  . 
Obey  River  .... 
Caney  Fork  .... 
Bayou  Black     .    .    . 
Bayous       D'Arbonne 
and  Courtableau 
Little  and  L'Anguille 
Fourche  la  Fave    .     . 
Petit  Jean     .... 
Little  Missouri  .    .     . 
Saline  

90 
170 
68 
92 
14 

68 
123 
44 
45 

80 

63 
100 

68 

(e) 
44 
45 

(c)         233,700.00 
(e) 

(n\ 

1 

1 
1 

Subtracting  major 

16,283 
6,579 

15,140 
6,241 

12,986.5 
6,718.0 

$193,055,515.80 
45,305,650  00 

streams  leaves  minors. 

9,704 

8.899 

7,268.5 

A  is  Mr.  Anderson's  estimate,  B  is  Mr.  Vivian's,  and  C  is  compiled  from  the  re- 
ports of  the  Chief  of  Engineers.  D  is  the  cost  of  the  improvements  to  date  as 
nearly  as  it  can  be  compiled  from  the  reports,  and  E  is  the  method  of  improvement 
—  1  being  open  channel,  and  2  slack-water. 

The  following  notes  refer  to  letters  in  the  tables  :  (a)  This  includes  only  the 
Grand  Rapids  reach  above  Minneapolis.  Eventually  there  will  probably  be  2500 

230 


THE  TRIBUTARIES 

miles  navigable,  (b)  Declared  not  navigable  by  Congress  after  construction  of 
Northern  Pacific  Railway,  (c)  All  these  bayous  are  lumped  together  in  cost  col- 
umn under  Bayou  D'Arbonne.  (d)  Included  under  Tazoo.  (e)  This  estimate  for 
the  St.  Francis  is  based  upon  a  recent  report  of  the  Board  of  Review.  The  river  is 
sometimes  considered  navigable  for  about  289  miles  at  high  water,  with  two 
branches,  Little  and  L'Anguille  rivers,  offering  considerably  more,  (f)  This  in- 
cludes the  cost  of  the  Fox  and  Wisconsin  improvement,  excluding  such  parts  as  are 
only  of  value  at  the  Lake  Michigan  end.  The  Wisconsin  is  not  now  navigable,  (g) 
Cache  River  is  included  under  White  of  Arkansas,  (h)  Mr.  Vivian  puts  Tensas  and 
Macon  together,  (i)  This  is  the  Upper  Allegheny,  on  most  of  which  there  is  no  up- 
stream navigation,  but  it  is  listed  by  the  War  Department  as  navigable  for  rafting 
and  floating  downstream,  (j)  This  one  of  the  "  Other  Tazoo  waters,"  listed  lower 
down.  The  War  Department  lists  the  whole  Yazoo  system  at  about  800  miles,  but 
accounts  for  only  a  part  of  that,  (k)  Current  is  included  in  Black  of  Arkansas, 
(m)  A  part  of  the  Hennepin  route,  (n)  Mr.  Vivian  includes  the  Black  of  Louisi- 
ana with  the  Washita.  (o)  The  cost  of  all  the  minors  of  the  Tennessee  has  been 
put  together  under  the  Clinch  River,  (p)  195  miles  to  Jackson,  Tennessee,  was 
formerly  included  in  this,  but  is  not  now  used,  (q)  Tug  and  Levisa  are  included 
under  Big  Sandy.  Elk  and  Gauley  are  included  under  Big  Kanawha. 

This  list  is  necessarily  incomplete  and  imper- 
fect. So,  also,  is  that  of  the  cost  of  the  improve- 
ments. There  are  several  items  of  state  expendi- 
ture which  do  not  here  appear,  notably  those  for 
the  Muskingum  ($1,300,000),  for  the  Kentucky 
($750,000),  and  for  the  Green  and  Barren 
($657,000),  the  state  expenditure  on  the  Illinois 
(about  $1,000,000),  and  the  Chicago  Sanitary 
Canal  ($45,000,000),  making  a  total  of  $241,- 
762,515.80.  Many  rivers  which  are  slack-watered 
have  indefinite  appropriations  for  maintenance, 
which  are  only  to  be  found  in  the  report  of  the 
Chief  of  Engineers  year  by  year,  and  which  in 
the  case  of  the  Muskingum  have  already  footed 
up  to  more  than  $1,000,000.  With  these,  how- 

231 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

ever,  and  with  many  of  the  smaller  annual  appro- 
priations for  snagging,  we  are  not  actually  con- 
cerned, as  they  are  bills  for  running  expenses 
rather  than  for  channel  development.  It  is  also 
difficult  to  draw  the  line  among  the  bayous  of 
Louisiana,  and  to  determine  which  of  them  are 
properly  here  to  be  included  and  which  left  out 
as  not  properly  parts  of  the  system. 

In  the  development  of  the  lesser  streams  the 
engineers  have  followed  the  same  methods  that 
have  been  used  on  the  larger  rivers.  The  steep 
mountain  streams  which  flow  into  the  Ohio  have 
required  general  slack-watering,  and  those  which 
come  down  on  the  south  of  the  Ozarks  into  the 
lowlands  of  Louisiana  are  now  being  similarly 
treated.  In  connection  with  this  slack-water- 
ing, the  channel  is  snagged,  rocks  are  removed, 
and  contraction  and  training  works  are  erected 
where  needed.  Streams  which  do  not  need  locks 
and  dams  are  improved  by  open  channel  work. 
There  are  a  number  of  streams,  such  as  the  Ar- 
kansas, included  above,  which  by  this  method 
do  not  yield  navigation  more  than  a  part  of  the 
year. 

232 


THE  TRIBUTARIES 

Greatest  of  all  the  tributaries  in  navigable 
length  is  the  Ked  River,  the  last  to  enter  the 
Mississippi  from  the  west.  It  is  also  one  of  those 
which  have  offered  the  most  complicated  prob- 
lems. In  the  early  days  this  river  was  obstructed 
by  a  great  "  raft "  of  timber,  brought  down  by 
its  current,  into  which  it  had  been  hurled  by 
caving  banks.  This  raft  formerly  extended  as 
far  down  as  Natchitoches,  or  even  lower,  and  its 
removal  by  Henry  M.  Shreve  about  1838  marked 
the  beginning  of  river  work  in  that  department. 
Shreve  cut  a  way  through  with  his  snagboat  at 
an  expense  of  $300,000,  against  ten  times  that 
sum  estimated  to  be  the  cost,  and  extended  navi- 
gation a  long  distance  up  the  stream.  From  that 
time  until  near  the  opening  of  the  Civil  War  the 
government  kept  the  stream  fairly  clear,  the  Red 
River  bottoms  were  partially  leveed,  and  the 
Red  River  trade  was  the  richest  in  all  Western 
steamboating.  Before  the  actual  outbreak  of  the 
war,  however,  the  work  was  suspended,  and  in 
the  course  of  the  next  few  years  the  raft  again 
accumulated,  being  now  above  Shreveport,  and 
entirely  covering  the  surface  of  the  river  for 

233 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

thirty  miles  or  more,  augmenting  this  length 
annually.  In  1872,  when  federal  attention  was 
again  turned  to  the  stream,  the  raft  extended 
for  32  miles,  and  as  an  obstacle  to  navigation 
effectually  seconded  the  efforts  of  200  steam- 
boat hulks  which  were  sunk  in  the  channels  and 
on  the  bars  of  the  river. 

The  existence  of  this  raft  in  early  days  caused 
the  floods  of  the  Red  to  seek  other  outlets  than 
through  the  lower  course  of  the  river,  and  many 
bayous  were  created  through  the  bottom  lands 
into  which  the  current  frequently  shifted,  so  that 
the  channel  was  unstable  to  a  degree  not  met 
with  on  any  other  water.  Many  of  these  bayous 
had  been  closed  by  levee  lines;  but  the  war  pe- 
riod saw  these  broken,  and  it  became  the  task  of 
the  river  improvers  to  confine  the  lower  reach  of 
the  river  to  its  own  channel —  chiefly  by  closing 
Tones's  bayou,  near  Shreveport  —  and  to  open 
the  upper  reaches  by  cutting  out  the  raft.  The 
closing  of  the  bayou  proved  a  long  and  costly 
work,  but  was  at  length  accomplished.  The  raft 
was  first  cut  through  and  then  entirely  removed, 
though  timber  still  accumulates  rapidly.  Opening 

234 


THE  TRIBUTARIES 

of  the  raft  gave  high-water  steamboat  channels 
to  Fulton,  Arkansas,  508.6  miles  from  the  mouth, 
and  snagging  cleared  the  high-water  way  an 
additional  170  miles  to  the  mouth  of  the  Kiami- 
chi  River  in  the  Indian  Territory. 

The  removal  of  the  raft  had  the  effect  of 
causing  the  bottom  to  cut  10  feet  at  its  head 
and  3  feet  at  Shreveport,  establishing  a  more 
even  slope  and  draining  many  thousands  of  acres 
of  wonderfully  fertile  alluvial  lands  above  it, 
adding  to  the  wealth  and  healthfulness  of  that 
country. 

On  the  Lower  Red  River  the  falls  at  Alexan- 
dria have  been  the  subject  of  considerable  work, 
deepening  the  low- water  channel  from  2.5  to 
5.5  feet.  Dredging,  revetting,  chute-closing,  and 
snagging  along  the  river  have  gradually  im- 
proved the  stream  so  that  now,  when  there  is 
one  foot  on  the  gauge  at  Shreveport  there  is 
three-foot  navigation  to  Fulton,  and  at  standard 
low  water  there  is  3  feet  to  Montgomery,  162.5 
miles;  2.5  feet  to  Shreveport,  320.5  miles;  and 
2  feet  to  Fulton,  508.6  miles  from  the  mouth  of 
the  stream.  One  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  new 

235 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

levee  and  one  hundred  of  enlargement,  fifteen 
per  cent  of  it  by  the  federal  authorities,  have 
been  built,  to  the  further  improvement  and 
steadiness  of  the  channel. 

The  chief  affluent  of  the  Red  is  the  Washita 
and  Black, — but  one  river, — which  is  navigable 
under  varying  circumstances  at  moderate  and 
high  stages  to  Camden,  Arkansas,  360  miles.  A 
new  project,  recently  adopted,  calls  for  slack- 
water  in  this  stream,  and  appropriations  have 
been  made  for  the  first  two  of  nine  locks  and 
movable  dams,  which,  when  the  channel  work 
has  been  correlated  to  them,  will  give  six  and  a 
half  feet  of  water  to  Camden  at  all  stages. 

Next  in  order  of  magnitude  of  the  tributaries 
come  the  Tennessee  and  Cumberland,  already 
described,  and  then  the  Arkansas  and  White, 
which  enter  the  Mississippi  through  a  common 
mouth  some  distance  below  Memphis.  The  Ar- 
kansas is  a  stream  in  some  ways  resembling  the 
Missouri,  having  a  scanty  rainfall  on  a  wide  basin, 
and  but  a  small  run-off.  The  low  water  of  its 
upper  reach  in  summer  is  abstracted  for  irrigation 
purposes,  leaving  its  bed  almost  dry;  so  that 

236 


THE  TRIBUTARIES 

though  Congress  has  adopted  a  plan  calling  for 
navigation  as  far  as  Wichita,  770  miles,  there 
seems  no  prospect  that  it  will  be  obtained.  Theo- 
retically, the  head  of  steamboat  navigation  is  now 
at  Fort  Gibson,  on  the  Grand  River,  about  two 
miles  from  the  Arkansas;  and  in  recent  years 
barges,  and  even  steamboats,  have  ascended  in 
good  seasons  to  Muskogee.  A  proposition  has 
been  made,  and  has  found  favor  in  Oklahoma,  to 
dig  a  canal  from  the  capital  city  to  the  Arkansas; 
and  if  that  is  done,  some  means  will  probably  be 
found  for  extending  navigation  that  far  up  the 
river.  But  navigation  in  this  shallow  stream  is  at 
the  best  uncertain.  In  spite  of  much  work  done 
on  a  project  adopted  years  ago,  to  secure  six  feet 
of  water  as  far  up  as  Little  Rock,  no  such  chan- 
nel has  as  yet  come  into  being ;  and  the  best  that 
has  been  obtained  in  recent  years  at  moderately 
low  water,  which  is  the  best  stage  which  prevails 
when  the  demands  of  commerce  are  the  heaviest, 
have  been  to  give  extremely  shoal  navigation  to 
Little  Rock  and  a  regular  three-foot  channel  to 
Pine  Bluff.  In  1901  there  was  no  navigation 
above  Shoal  Creek,  88  miles  below  Fort  Smith, 

237 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

||  and  only  12  inches  for  a  long  distance  below  there. 
The  Arkansas  costs  large  sums  for  snagging,  and 
eventually,  if  open  channels  are  obtained,  must 
be  extensively  revetted  and  contracted. 

The  White  Kiver,  its  chief  affluent,  has  quite 
another  history.  From  its  small  shed  in  the  Ozarks 
it  draws  a  steady  flow,  which  enables  navigation 
on  it  to  be  extended  by  slack-water,  so  that  the 
head  of  navigation  is  now  put  at  Forsythe,  Mis- 
souri, 505  miles  up  the  stream.  This  is,  however, 
only  for  moderate  stages.  There  is  now  at  low 
water  3  feet  to  Jacksonport,  264  miles ;  16  inches 
from  there  to  Batesville,  37  miles ;  and  a  slack- 
water  project  was  undertaken  a  few  years  ago  to 
give  5  feet  to  Buffalo  Shoals,  89  miles.  There 
being  no  outlet  for  this  five-foot  channel,  and 
no  means  for  using  it,  nor  any  contemplated 
except  an  occasional  high  water  tendered  free 
by  a  beneficent  Providence,  and  no  towns  at 
the  headwater,  and  no  freight  to  carry,  and  no 
boats  on  the  river,  Congress,  after  spending  some 
$684,109.78  upon  the  project,  has  abandoned  it. 
One  of  the  dams  has  been  given  over,  free  of 
charge,  to  a  private  lighting  company  at  Bates- 

238 


THE  YAZOO  CUT.     ARTIFICIAL  CHANNEL  FOR  THE  YAZOO  INTO 
CENTENNIAL  LAKE 


V1CKSBURG  CANAL.     ARTIFICIAL  MOUTH  OF  THE  YAZOO  FROM 
CENTENNIAL  LAKE  TO  THE  MISSISSIPPI 


THE  TRIBUTARIES 

ville,  to  be  used  to  develop  electric  power,  and 
now  permission  is  given  to  another  individual  to 
build  a  third  dam,  in  its  proper  place,  for  the 
purpose  of  securing  the  power  there. 

One  of  the  most  important  tributary  systems 
of  the  Mississippi,  on  account  of  its  rich  country 
and  its  easy  channels,  is  the  Yazoo,  which,  ac- 
cording to  the  estimates  of  the  Chief  of  Engi- 
neers, offers  800  miles  of  channel.  Of  this,  240 
is  in  the  Yazoo  itself,  a  good  three-foot  water  at 
all  stages ;  a  large  proportion  is  available  at  low, 
and  the  rest  at  very  moderate  stages.  This  is  in 
a  rich  cotton  country;  the  waters  have  been  im- 
proved at  little  cost  (chiefly  by  snagging  and 
dredging  and  some  contraction),  and  the  whole 
system  has  been  and  is  kept  continually  and 
profitably  in  use. 

A  different  story  is  to  be  told  of  the  Wabash 
and  White  rivers  of  Indiana.  These  streams, 
which  were  formerly  much  used  in  connection 
with  the  canal  system  from  the  Ohio  to  Toledo, 
have  been  improved  at  a  total  cost  of  more  than 
one  million  dollars  to  the  federal  government,  in- 
eluding  a  dam  and  lock  at  the  Grand  Rapids  of 

239 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

the  Wabash.  In  spite  of  this,  however,  there  has 
been  no  means  adopted  of  providing  low-water 
depths  in  the  Ohio  and  the  lower  reach  of  the 
Wabash,  and  there  remains  to-day  a  few  miles  of 
three-foot  channel  above  Grand  Rapids,  and  a  few 
miles  of  twenty-inch  water  below,  with  better 
depths  at  better  stages,  and  no  connection  with 
the  outside  world  when  the  Ohio  is  below  seven 
feet.  The  White  River  is  now  to  be  electrically 
harnessed. 

On  none  of  these  systems  so  far  described,  ex- 
cept the  Yazoo,  is  there  anything  like  completion 
obtained,  or  enough  done  to  indicate  what  will 
be  the  ability  of  the  engineers  to  maintain  the 
depths  for  which  they  are  striving.  On  the  upper 
waters  of  the  Ohio,  where  slack-water  is  general 
and  of  long  standing,  we  find  rivers  completely 
organized  and  well  operated,  though  frequently 
with  distressing  lack  of  system. 

The  Ohio  itself  is  formed  by  two  slack-watered 
streams.  The  Monongahela  was  dammed  and 
pooled,  with  locks,  three  quarters  of  a  century 
ago,  for  the  purpose  of  getting  coal  out  of  the 
mountains.  From  those  pools  has  always  come 

240 


THE  TRIBUTARIES 

the  greater  part  of  the  trade  which  goes  down 
the  Ohio  to  the  Mississippi.  Those  dams  and 
locks  have  recently  been  acquired  by  the  federal 
government.  They  carry  five  feet  of  water  to  the 
West  Virginia  line.  Above  that  the  government 
some  time  ago  constructed  two  locks  and  dams  to 
carry  vessels  to  Morgantown,  and  now  six  dams 
have  been  added,  which  provide  coal-boat  water 
as  far  up  as  Fairmount. 

The  Kanawhas,  the  Big  Sandy,  the  Kentucky, 
and  the  Green  and  Barren  have  all  been  similarly 
treated,  and  as  far  as  their  internal  reaches  are 
concerned  are  in  good  working  order,  with  five  or 
six  feet  of  water  in  all  sections.  At  their  mouths, 
however,  they  are  blocked  by  the  unimproved 
Ohio,  and  will  not  attain  their  proper  usefulness 
for  many  years.  The  tributaries  of  the  Upper 
Mississippi  have  without  exception  been  improved 
by  the  open  channel  method.  The  Fox  and  the 
Chippewa  have  been  abandoned,  and  most  of 
the  Minnesota  has  been  given  up,  only  a  short 
stretch,  patronized  by  excursion  boats,  having 
been  dredged  and  contracted.  The  St.  Croix  has 
been  kept  open  for  the  use  of  lumbermen,  and 

241 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

on  account  of  the  multitude  of  logs  drifted  down 
it  no  other  navigation  is  possible. 

One  cannot  long  study  the  story  of  these 
tributary  waters  without  being  struck  with  the 
lack  of  any  comprehensive  or  orderly  plan  for 
their  development  and  utilization.  This  has  partly 
grown,  as  I  have  said  in  an  earlier  chapter,  out 
of  the  early  necessity  by  which  each  was  hastily 
developed  as  a  necessary  means  of  communication 
for  the  early  settlers.  But  that  day  has  long  gone 
by,  and  the  illogical  methods  persist,  with  the 
result  that  the  obstacles  to  through  commerce  are 
being  perpetuated,  until  they  will  reach  a  stage 
at  which  their  removal  will  be  enormously  costly. 
To  understand  this  we  have  only  to  study  the  fol- 
lowing list  of  locks  mounted  or  in  adopted  pro- 
jects on  the  slack-water  streams,  not  considering 
the  open  channel  work  which,  we  must  believe, 
will  some  day  be  brought  into  relation  to  them. 


THE  TRIBUTARIES 


RIVER. 

NUMBEB. 

LOOK  CHAMBERS. 

Length 
(avail- 
able). 

Width. 

Built. 

Depth  over 
lower  sills. 

Monongahela    . 

1* 

158 

50 

1841 

5.6-7 

2* 

215 

56 

1848 

*  These  are  dou- 
ble  locks,  one   of 
first  4  beside  each 
of  next  4. 

1* 
1* 
1 

225 

277 
165.5 

56 
56 
50 

1886 
1883 
1856 

3.4 

2 

159 

50 

1853,  1886 

4-5.5 

1 

160 

50 

1879 

7.15 

1 

161.7 

50 

1882 

6 

7 

177 

56 

1905 

7 

Allegheny    .    . 

1 

286.2 

55 

1897 

7 

2 

289.6 

56 

1903 

7 

Great  Kanawha 

1 

271 

50 

1887 

8.67 

1 

272 

50 

1882 

7 

2 

274 

50 

1880 

6.5 

6 

313 

55 

1886-1898 

6.08-8.25 

Little  Kanawha 

4 

125 

22 

1867 

3.5 

1 

126 

26 

1891 

4 

Muskingum  .     . 

8 

160 

36 

1836-1891 

4.5-5.5 

1 

366 

56 

1890 

3 

2 

158 

35.5 

1836 

5.4 

Big  Sandy    .    . 

2 

158 

55 

1904 

6-7.3 

1 

158 

52 

1896 

6 

Green  .... 

3 

138 

36 

1835 

1-6.8 

2 

145 

36 

1899 

5.1 

Barren     .     .     . 

1 

140 

36 

1835 

4.5 

Rough      .     .     . 

1 

123 

27 

1896 

5.2 

Kentucky     .     . 

5 

145 

38 

1844 

6 

1 

147 

52 

1891 

6 

2 

148 

52 

1897-1900 

6 

Ohio  River  .     . 

14  (to  be  more) 

600 

110 

building 

"  (Louisville) 

2 

350 

80 

1873 

4.8 

Tennessee     .     . 

1 

340 

80 

1897 

7 

11 

285 

60 

1889 

5 

Cumberland 

22 

280 

52 

building 

6.5 

Wabash   .     .     . 

1 

214 

52 

3.5 

White,  Ark.      . 

10 

147 

35 

building 

5 

Washita  .     .     . 

9 

350 

45 

building 

6.5 

Illinois 

4 

350 

75 

7 

Mississippi    .     . 

5 

325 

78.5 

Osage  .... 
Lakes-Gulfpro- 

1 

220 

42 

building 

posed    .     .     . 

600 

80 

243 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

The  absurdity  of  such  a  lack  of  system  is  too 
apparent  on  the  face  of  it  to  need  pointing  out. 
Nevertheless,  there  are  some  features  even  in  this 
medley  that  are  especially  aggravating.  Thus, 
on  the  Tennessee,  the  single  lock  at  Colbert's 
Shoals  is  made  of  ample  size,  while  those  at  the 
Muscle  Shoals,  through  which  all  steamers  must 
pass  to  reach  Chattanooga,  and  which  when  the 
plan  is  complete  will  be  on  a  waterway  of  even 
depth,  are  twenty  feet  narrower  and  fifty-five  feet 
shorter.  No  matter  to  what  extent  the  channel  is 
improved,  therefore,  the  smallest  of  these  locks 
limits  the  size  of  steamers  ascending  to  Chatta- 
nooga, and  the  extra  cost  of  the  larger  lock  must 
be  justified  by  the  local  traffic  between  it  and  the 
Muscle  Shoals.  Nothing  can  justify  the  engineers 
for  shutting  the  Chattanooga  reach  against  ves- 
sels of  equal  size  with  the  lower  section.  On  the 
Monongahela  the  presence  of  larger  locks  at 
headwaters  than  lower  down  is  only  an  evidence 
of  intention  to  enlarge  the  lower  locks  later,  the 
old  ones  having  been  built  by  a  company;  a 
similar  excuse  may  avail  on  the  Great  Kanawha. 
But  no  explanation  is  at  hand  for  the  action  of 

244 


THE  TRIBUTARIES 

the  engineers  in  making  locks  286  by  56  serve 
the  Allegheny,  while  on  a  similar  stream  of  equal 
depth,  the  Kanawha,  they  find  313  by  55  a  suit- 
able size.  On  the  Green  and  Barren  they  seem 
to  have  adopted  a  size  about  145  by  36,  but  on 
the  Rough,  a  tributary,  with  the  same  depth,  they 
have  cut  this  to  123  by  27.  The  Cumberland  is 
given  locks  5  feet  shorter  than  those  of  the 
Tennessee,  and  eight  feet  narrower,  thus  shutting 
out  from  this  neighboring  traffic  boats  made  to 
accommodate  the  Chattanooga  trade.  The  Wa- 
bash  lock  conforms  to  nothing  else,  the  isolated 
White  River  locks  are  in  a  class  with  those  of 
the  Green  and  Barren,  the  Kentucky  sets  another 
standard.  In  fact,  there  is  a  wide  variety,  but  so 
arranged  that  only  a  narrow  boat  of  little  length 
has  choice  of  the  streams  for  traffic. 

The  day  has  passed  when  the  United  States 
can  afford  work  of  this  character,  or  can  afford, 
either,  to  allow  these  streams  to  be  blocked  with 
costly  masonry  which  does  not  develop  their 
trade. 

There  also  remains  to  be  solved  the  problem  of 
the  ownership  of  the  power  in  these  navigable 

245 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

streams.  To  whom  shall  it  belong?  And  who 
shall  pay  for  the  making  of  it  ?  In  order  to  ap- 
proach the  question  with  some  information,  Con- 
gress has  required  from  the  Corps  of  Engineers 
a  report  on  the  water-power  developed  by  the 
dams  between  St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis,  to  de- 
termine how  much  is  available  and  at  what  peri- 
ods, how  it  can  be  developed  without  injuring 
navigation,  and  how  it  should  be  disposed  of. 
But  long  before  the  question  had  been  brought 
up  there,  it  had  been  met  and  passed  lightly  by 
on  the  Tennessee,  the  Cumberland,  the  White, 
and  other  streams.  On  the  Tennessee  at  Muscle 
Shoals  and  at  the  other  steep  places,  there  are 
large  possibilities  for  water-power  at  points  where 
it  is  much  needed.  The  common  plan  of  opera- 
tions in  such  a  case  has  been  for  Congress  to  per- 
mit some  party  chartered  by  the  state  to  erect  a 
dam  across  the  stream,  on  condition  that  if  it  in- 
terferes with  navigation  Congress  may  erect  a  lock 
adjoining  it  and  control  the  flow  of  water  for  the 
benefit  of  shipping.  On  the  Tennessee,  however, 
where  the  steepest  shoals  are  passed  by  canal  and 
lock,  an  investigation  is  under  way  to  determine 

246 


THE  TRIBUTARIES 

to  what  extent  slack-water  may  be  developed  in 
the  river  itself,  and  whether  the  dam-builders  can 
properly  be  made  to  carry  out  each  project.  Far- 
ther up,  at  Scott  Point,  or  Hale's  Bar,  where  there 
was  open  channel  navigation,  Congress  has  per- 
mitted a  private  corporation  to  dam  the  river,  on 
condition  that  it  provide  a  suitable  lock,  the  Corps 
of  Engineers  providing  plans  and  oversight.  This 
will  much  improve  the  situation  at  and  above 
Chattanooga,  at  slight  cost  to  the  government.  It 
would  seem  that  in  all  cases  in  which  a  water- 
power  privilege  was  owned  by  private  persons, 
and  there  was  already  a  fall  which  obstructed 
navigation,  the  power  owners  might  very  properly 
be  allowed  to  build  their  dams  and  the  federal 
engineers  to  build  the  locks,  after  the  manner 
anciently  followed.  On  the  other  hand,  where 
Congress  has  created  a  water-power  by  slack- 
watering  a  stream  to  better  an  ancient  open  chan- 
nel, as  in  the  Upper  White  River,  there  should 
be  compensation  to  the  government  for  the  power 
used,  which  should  go  toward  paying  for  the  dam. 
No  such  compensation  is  provided  for  in  the  act 
which  gives  away  the  power  on  the  White  at 

247 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

Batesville,  it  being  provided  that  the  private  per- 
sons interested  may  take  possession  of  this  gov- 
ernment dam,  construct  races  and  other  parts 
needed,  and  draw  the  water  for  power,  giving  the 
nation  so  much  as  is  needed  to  operate  the  lock, 
and  being  restricted  only  to  the  point  at  which 
their  withdrawal  of  water  would  interfere  with 
navigation.  The  project  of  slack-watering  on  the 
Upper  White  has  been  withdrawn,  because  there 
is  at  present  no  reason  for  its  fulfillment.  When 
it  is  extended  down  to  Jacksonport  and  the  work 
again  undertaken,  this  question  must  be  met 
squarely,  and  should  be  settled  with  a  decision 
either  to  allow  the  dams  to  be  built  by  and  at  the 
expense  of  companies  which  are  to  operate  the 
power,  or  to  have  the  power  development  go  hand 
in  hand  with  the  dam  construction  and  the  rev- 
enue from  the  sale  go  toward  the  reimbursement 
for  the  outlay. 

On  the  Cumberland,  again,  this  question  must 
be  met,  and  on  the  upper  waters  of  that  river 
Congress  has  solved  it  by  allowing  a  navigation 
company  to  establish  lock  and  pool  navigation 
and  use  the  power  at  the  dams.  On  the  Missis- 

248 


THE  TRIBUTARIES 

sippi  above  Minneapolis  every  dam  privilege  is 
granted  without  recompense,  although  the  owners 
get  the  full  benefit  of  the  steady  flow  from  the 
expensive  reservoirs  created  by  the  government. 
They  are  only  required  to  leave  room  for  a  future 
lock.  On  the  Ohio  the  question  has  not  yet  been 
publicly  raised.  The  movable  dams  are  not  tight, 
three  or  four  inches  being  left  between  wickets 
to  allow  for  bending  and  getting  out  of  align- 
ment. But  by  the  use  of  needles  at  these  gaps  it 
is  possible  to  make  the  dams  almost  tight,  and  to 
reserve  a  great  deal  of  the  regular  summer  flow 
to  be  passed  through  turbines.  This  power  would 
be  intermittent,  but  at  times  exceedingly  valuable. 

Taken  all  together,  the  water-powers  upon  our 
navigable  streams  are  very  large,  and  there  will' 
be  many  more  streams  added  to  the  navigable 
list  when  the  demand  for  electrical  power  has 
so  increased  that  more  rivers  can  be  'profitably 
slack-watered.  The  two  things  should  never  be 
separated  in  the  minds  of  the  engineers  who 
are  planning  the  work. 

So  much,  then,  for  the  minor  streams  flowing 
into  the  great  trunk  lines  of  the  Mississippi.  Like 

249 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

the  greater  streams,  they  can  never  come  to  their 
best  working  out  until  the  navigable  waters  of 
America  are  considered  as  a  whole  by  some  gov- 
ernment organization,  and  are  developed,  not  at 
the  annually  changing  whim  of  Congress,  but  by 
the  steadily  growing  and  continually  unified  plan 
of  an  understanding  commission  or  commissioner. 
It  may  take  us  some  years  yet  to  come  to  it,  or 
the  temporary  commission  which  President  Roose- 
velt has  appointed  may  bring  us  sooner  to  it.  But 
the  years  that  elapse  before  the  accomplishment 
need  not  be  wasted,  and  indeed  may  be  made 
very  profitable  if  they  be  used  for  the  study  of 
the  best  means  of  making  the  best  use  of  those 
rivers  we  have  and  of  those  we  hope  to  get. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  UTILIZATION  OF  THE  CHANNELS 

f  MHE  purpose  o£  this  volume  is  not  to  discuss 
JL  in  any  detail  the  new  plans  for  the  conserva- 
tion of  water  under  which  the  future  developments 
of  the  Mississippi  channels  will  be  carried  out, 
and  which  I  hope  to  take  up  in  a  second  work, 
nor  to  describe  the  methods  by  which  the  chan- 
nels have  been  and  will  be  best  turned  to  com- 
mercial account.  Nevertheless,  it  does  not  appear 
suitable  to  close  it  without  a  short  sketch  of  the 
rise  and  decline  of  river  traffic,  and  an  indication 
of  some  of  the  causes  of  success  and  of  failure 
therein. 

In  the  earliest  days  river  traffic  was  carried  on 
by  drifting  boats,  built  of  timber  or  rough  lum- 
ber, most  of  which  went  down  to  New  Orleans 
from  the  interior  loaded  with  native  produce, 
and  were  broken  up  and  sold  for  wood  at  New 
Orleans.  In  addition,  there  were  "keel-boats," 
in  model  not  unlike  the  standard  barges  seen  to- 

D 

251 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

day  on  European  rivers,  which  returned  upstream 
under  the  impetus  of  sail,  oar,  and  cordeling  rope, 
and  occasionally  of  side- wheels  turned  by  horse- 
power. As  early  as  1802  the  steamboat  began  to 
be  discussed  on  the  river,  and  in  that  year  one 
was  built  for  a  Mr.  McKeever,  who  had  secured 
a  privilege  from  the  Intendant  at  New  Orleans. 
His  boat  was  destroyed  before  being  finished, 
however,  and  aside  from  a  few  experimental  mod- 
els on  Fitch's  plan  on  the  Ohio,  no  steam  vessel 
floated  on  the  river  until  the  building  of  the  first 
Fulton  steamboat  in  1811,  the  New  Orleans. 
The  Fulton-Livingston  monopoly  secured  from 
the  Louisiana  legislature  a  monopoly  of  steam 
traffic  on  the  lower  river,  but  a  young  pioneer, 
Henry  M.  Shreve,  having  designed  a  boat  more 
able  than  theirs,  attacked  them  in  court  and  de- 
feated them. 

Thereafter,  under  the  stimulating  enthusiasm 
of  Shreve,  who  made  many  inventions  and  gave 
them  without  patent  to  his  countrymen,  the  Mis- 
sissippi River  steamboat  advanced  more  rapidly 
toward  perfection  than  any  other  similar  craft  in 
the  world ;  so  that  in  twenty  years  there  were 

252 


UTILIZATION  OF  CHANNELS 

several  hundred  high-pressure  steamboats  plying 
the  stream,  carrying  fabulous  cargoes  at  high 
freight  rates.  They  were  all  built  after  practically 
the  same  model,  designed  by  Shreve,  and  were 
like  the  antique  packets  to  be  seen  on  the  river 
to-day.  Their  engines  were  for  the  time  magnifi- 
cent, using  even  at  that  epoch  steam  at  160  pounds 
pressure.  But  the  boats  themselves  had  many 
faults.  Their  immense  radial  wheels  weakened 
their  hulls  by  continual  pounding  upon  the  water. 
Their  hulls  and  light  decks,  built  flimsily  to  save 
weight,  were  liable  to  destruction  by  fire,  and 
burned  so  rapidly  when  the  overheated  boilers 
started  combustion  as  to  cause  many  terrible  dis- 
asters. The  light  wooden  hulls  were  easily  pene- 
trated by  snags,  wrecking  the  boats.  And  the 
channel,  from  which  eventually  the  Shreve  snag- 
boat  cleared  most  of  these  obstructions,  was  so 
irregular  and  so  unreliable  that  the  boats  fre- 
quently ran  aground  and  were  either  lost  or 
delayed. 

Nevertheless,  some  of  these  vessels  were  ex- 
tremely fast,  making  twenty  miles  an  hour  at  an 
early  epoch ;  and  so  long  as  slave  labor  continued 

253 


REMAKING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 

they  were  able  to  do  business  with  fair  economy. 
Several  new  developments,  however,  came  to  the 
river  simultaneously.  The  war  ended  slave  labor 
and  destroyed  the  prosperity  of  the  South.  It  also 
made  for  many  years  an  entire  end  to  river  trans- 
portation, caused  the  burning  or  sinking  of  hun- 
dreds of  steamboats,  and  the  impoverishment  of 
all  those  who  depended  upon  steam  navigation 
for  a  livelihood.  At  the  same  time  a  railroad  for 
the  first  time  paralleled  the  river  and  another  cut 
across  it,  joining  the  Western  fields  directly  to 
the  East. 

During  the  continuance  of  the  war  it  was  ne- 
cessary for  the  North  to  carry  to  the  seaboard 
ports  and  for  distribution  to  the  army  the  grain 
of  the  new  West.  The  exporting  of  this  grain  and 
of  meat  stores  was  essential  in  order  to  maintain 
foreign  credit  and  to  provide  the  expenses  of  the 
war.  Every  energy  was  turned  toward  the  crea- 
tion and  improvement  of  transcontinental  lines; 
and  inventive  genius,  fascinated  by  this  problem 
of  national  safety  and  by  the  rich  rewards  from 
success,  turned  toward  the  improvement  of  the 
locomotive  and  to  all  parts  of  the  railway  service. 

254 


UTILIZATION  OF  CHANNELS 

At  the  same  time  the  Eastern  harbors  were  be- 
ing improved,  deep  steam  vessels  were  supplant- 
ing the  old  wooden  sailing  ships,  and  the  South 
was  stagnating.  Naturally,  when  the  war  closed, 
the  river  was  unable  to  recover.  There  was  no 
longer  a  fighting  chance  for  it.  It  had  at  its 
mouth  the  impoverished  city  of  New  Orleans, 
and  a  channel  through  which  only  old  clippers 
drawing  at  best  sixteen  feet  of  water  could  pass. 
In  its  export  rates  and  facilities  it  could  not  com- 
pare with  any  of  the  Eastern  ports.  Its  terminals 
had  no  facilities  for  handling  freight.  Slave  labor 
was  abolished,  but  no  substitute  for  it  except  the 
free  darky  had  been  devised.  The  steamboat  of 
Shreve,  with  no  new  improvements  of  value,  con- 
tinued to  be  the  river  type.  It  could  compete 
with  the  railway  of  its  own  time ;  but  in  a  chan- 
nel uncertain  and  dreaded  it  could  not  compete 
with  the  quicker,  safer,  and  in  the  end  not  more 
expensive  railway  of  the  post-bellum  days. 

As  a  result,  though  the  river  traffic  increased 
rapidly  after  the  war  until  about  1871,  and  pro- 
duced such  famous  vessels  as  the  R.  E.  Lee  and 
the  Natchez,  it  became  evident  that  it  was  only 

255 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

a  last  burst  before  the  death  of  the  old-style 
methods.  The  combination  passenger  and  freight 
boat,  with  its  many  handicaps,  could  no  longer 
hold  its  own.  An  endeavor  was  made  to  substitute 
towed  freight-barges  carrying  grain  from  St. 
Louis  to  New  Orleans,  and  after  the  opening  of 
the  Mississippi  mouth  by  Eads  and  the  erection 
of  elevators  at  New  Orleans  this  traffic  consider- 
ably increased.  St.  Louis  arrived  at  a  freight 
movement  by  water  of  more  than  a  million  tons 
a  year,  not  including  her  local  transfer  service. 
Still  there  remained  several  handicaps  on  the 
service,  some  of  which  were  and  some  were  not 
perceived  by  those  interested.  In  order  that  river 
traffic  may  compete  with  rail,  it  must  have  the 
same  facilities  for  cheap  transfer,  for  quick  hand- 
ling, and  for  safety,  as  the  railway  has.  On  the 
Mississippi  there  was  not  from  end  to  end  any 
facility  for  loading  and  unloading  package 
freight  except  the  brawny  negroes,  who  still 
"toted"  by  hand  even  the  heaviest  packages. 
The  boats  were  still  the  old  sort,  with  no  possi- 
bility of  receiving  or  delivering  cargo  except  by 
hand  or  trucks.  Even  the  barges  which  carried 

256 


UTILIZATION  OF  CHANNELS 

grain  down  from  St.  Louis  were  roofed  over,  so 
that  while  grain  might  be  piped  into  their  holds, 
the  return  cargo  must  be  put  aboard  by  hand. 
There  were  no  proper  railway  terminals  at  the 
levees,  and  freight  which  went  to  and  from  the 
river  even  at  important  terminal  cities  paid  as 
high  as  $1  or  even  $2  a  ton  for  local  teaming 
charges. 

There  were  no  harbors  along  the  stream,  and 
the  packets  employed  the  ancient  method  of  pick- 
ing up  and  delivering  freight  at  every  plantation, 
much  as  if  the  trains  from  New  Orleans  to  Chi- 
cago should  stop  for  cotton  bales  at  every  plan- 
tation they  passed. 

Successful  traffic  on  the  river  requires,  just  as 
it  does  on  rail,  a  complete  separation  of  passen- 
ger and  freight  service.  Passengers  must  be 
handled  on  swift,  comfortable,  through  boats. 
Freight  requires  more  time,  and  a  different  type 
of  vessel.  Nowhere  on  the  river  were  these  two 
classes  of  boats  provided,  except  in  the  case  of 
the  St.  Louis  grain  and  the  Pittsburg  coal  barges. 
So  St.  Louis,  handicapped  by  its  own  inefficiency, 
saw  its  water  traffic  drop  back  to  a  third  of  a 

257 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

million  tons  a  year,  all  of  which  is  local  freight 
for  small  towns  below  or  for  plantations.  Only  a 
single  movement  of  freight  remained  prosperous 
on  the  river,  that  of  coal  upon  the  Ohio.  The 
movement  of  this  in  immense  fleets — sometimes 
60,000  tons  at  a  time —  on  the  high  water,  down- 
stream, is  one  of  the  largest  and  cheapest  freight 
movements  in  the  world,  being  carried  out  at  a 
cost  less  than  the  cheapest  ocean  freightage. 
The  empty  barges  are  pushed  upstream  for 
reloading,  often  with  small  cargoes  of  return 
freight,  and  the  transfers  are  accomplished  more 
quickly  and  economically  than  by  rail.  Yet  even 
this  is  still  done  in  the  old-fashioned  way;  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  the  present  charges  would 
be  cut  in  half  by  study  and  the  use  of  modern 
methods. 

It  is  commonly  said  now  that  the  railways 
killed  the  through  traffic  of  the  Mississippi.  This 
is  far  from  the  truth.  The  traffic  became  mori- 
bund from  stagnation,  by  the  failure  of  Ameri- 
can men  to  apply  to  it  the  same  inventive  energy 
and  the  same  free  use  of  capital  which  they  ap- 
plied to  the  railway  service.  But  it  was  finally 

258 


UTILIZATION  OF  CHANNELS 

wounded  almost  fatally  by  the  uncertainty  of 
the  channels  and  the  inefficiency  of  the  terminal 
service ;  two  things  which  were  tolerable  when 
there  was  no  other  route,  but  which  became  in- 
tolerable as  soon  as  the  railway  did  away  with 
them.  At  any  time  within  the  last  twenty  years 
the  Mississippi  might  have  been  profitably  re- 
vived by  the  organization  of  a  competent  corpo- 
ration large  enough  to  systematize  and  develop 
the  trade,  wise  enough  to  provide  modern  ma- 
chinery in  all  departments,  and  rich  enough  to 
weather  the  first  months  of  proving  to  the  ship- 
ping interests  their  sufficiency. 

Now,  however,  we  have  arrived  at  a  new 
epoch.  The  turning  of  traffic  toward  the  Gulf 
has  forced  the  railways  into  new  efficiency.  The 
opening  of  Panama  will  more  than  double  our 
trade  in  that  direction.  The  present  certainty  of 
our  channels,  deeper  than  the  best  in  Europe, 
makes  traffic  easy.  There  only  remains  the  proper 
transshipping  terminal  apparatus  and  the  proper 
boats  to  be  provided,  and  these  channels  of  the 
Mississippi  will  become  the  greatest  carriers  and 
the  greatest  arteries  of  our  internal  system. 

259 


REMAKING  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

They  will  not  interfere  with  the  railways. 
There  is  and  always  will  be  freight  enough  for 
both.  A  great  mass  of  imports  for  the  valley, 
instead  of  being  hauled  overland  from  New 
York,  ought  to,  and  will,  be  brought  up  the  Mis- 
sissippi to  Cairo  or  to  St.  Louis  for  distribution. 
The  export  produce  of  the  valley  ought  to,  and 
will,  go  to  New  Orleans  for  its  sea  outlet.  And 
from  St.  Louis  as  a  centre,  to  Pittsburg,  to 
Omaha,  to  St.  Paul,  to  Chicago,  will  go  the  in- 
terchanging goods  of  the  whole  heart  of  the  con- 
tinent by  water ;  increasing  the  prosperity  of  the 
whole  region,  and  increasing  at  the  same  time,  as 
experience  has  shown  to  be  inevitable,  the  traffic 
both  of  the  railways  which  parallel  them  and  of 
those  which,  crossing  them,  distribute  to  the 
hinterland  the  river-borne  goods. 

In  another  decade  not  three  hundred  thousand, 
but  more  than  three  million  tons  of  freight  ought 
to  move  in  and  out  from  the  central  point  every 
year.  When  the  Chicago  route  shall  have  been 
open  two  years,  it  should  be  carrying  as  much 
more.  And  when  the  Pittsburg-Lake  route  is 
open,  and  the  Ohio  canalization  sufficiently  com- 

260 


UTILIZATION  OF  CHANNELS 

pleted,  and  the  Missouri  once  more  fairly  in  con- 
trol, there  should  be  almost  an  equal  traffic  going 
from  east  to  west  and  west  to  east,  by  Erie  Canal 
barges  or  by  river  barges,  from  the  eastern  sea- 
board, through  the  canal,  through  the  Pittsburg 
way,  down  and  up  the  Ohio,  around  by  Cairo  to 
St.  Louis,  and  so  by  the  Missouri  for  distribution 
from  and  collection  in  the  great  depots  at  Kansas 
City,  Omaha,  and  Sioux  City. 

Then  the  Mississippi  will  have  come  into  its 
own;  and  then  all  America,  feeling  the  increase 
of  prosperity  with  this  cheap  and  efficient  inter- 
nal circulation,  will  benefit  from  the  belated  and 
irregular  expenditures  we  have  made  upon  the 
Kemaking  of  the  Mississippi. 


INDEX 


A-frame  dam,  192. 
Allegheny  River,  206. 
Arkansas  River,   hydrology,  21 ; 
statistics,  229,  236. 

Balise,  107. 

Bankhead,  174. 

Barges,  for  river  use,  257. 

Barren  River,  206,  229. 

Beartrap  dam,  192. 

Big  Sandy  River,  206,  229,  241. 

Black  River  (Louisiana),  230, 236. 

Breton  Sound  Canal,  117. 

Burrs  and  gabions,  175. 

Canal,  Breton  Sound,  117. 

Canal,  Chicago  Sanitary,  219,  221. 

Canal,  Illinois  and  Michigan,  217- 

Canal,  Illinois  and  Mississippi, 
224. 

Canal,  St.  Louis  route,  210. 

Canal,  Wisconsin,  212. 

Canal,  Wisconsin  route,  210. 

Canal  and  locks  (Upper  Missis- 
sippi), 159. 

Canalization,  80. 

Canalization,  Ohio  River,  182-207. 

Centres  of  traffic,  10. 

Channel,  81. 

Channel,  methods  of  making,  36. 

Channel  sections,  47. 

Channels,  existing,  18. 

Chanoine  wicket  dam,  193. 

Chicago  Divide,  216. 

Classification  of  rivers,  227, 244. 

Commercial  history,  5. 

Commission,  Inland  Waterway, 
17. 


Commission,  Mississippi  River,  64, 

87,  96,  99. 

Commission,  Missouri  River,  172. 
Conservation,  17, 34, 101, 151, 155, 

178. 

Conservation  (Wisconsin),  163. 
Contraction,  94,  175. 
Corps  of  Engineers,  U.  S.  A.,  14, 

87. 

Crevasse,  67. 
Cumberland  River,  205,  229,  236, 

246,  248. 
Cut-off,  86. 

Dams,  movable,  190 ;  needle,  190 ; 

A-frame,  192;   Chanoine,  193; 

beartrap,  192 ;  weir,  197 ;  pass, 

197. 

Davis  Island  dam,  199. 
Delta,  102. 

Des  Moines  Rapids,  158. 
Des  Plaines,  216. 
Dike,  hurdle,  94 ;  abatis,  95,  175 ; 

lighthouse,  141. 
Drainage  area,  7. 
Dredging,  97. 

Eads,  James  Buchanan,  107, 121, 

129, 134, 144,  147. 
Mlet,  Charles,  Jr.,  187. 
Erosion,  48,  83,  181. 

Fascine  mattress  making,  88,  174. 
Floods,  32,  36,  49, 51,  54,  203. 
Fourteen-foot  waterway,  219. 
Fox  River  (Wisconsin),  208. 
Fulton  steamboat,  first,  252. 
Fulton-Livingston  monopoly,  252. 


263 


INDEX 


Gabions  and  burrs,  175. 
Gauges,  river,  206 ;  readings,  32. 
Grading,  hydraulic,  91. 
Green  River,  206,  229. 

Haupt,  Hermann,  187. 
Hennepin  Canal,  224. 
Hydrology,  19-33. 

Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal,  217. 
Illinois    and    Mississippi    Canal, 

224. 
Illinois  River,  11,  21,  208,  224, 

225. 

Inland  Waterway  Commission,  17. 
Irrigation,  179. 
Itasca  State  Park,  152. 

Jetties,  129,135, 138, 148. 
Jetty  mattresses,  136. 
Jump,  the,  106. 

Kanawha  River,  206,  229,  241. 
Kentucky  River,  206,  229,  241. 

Lakes-to-the-Gulf  routes,  162, 
208. 

La  Salle,  209. 

Levees,  36,  38,  51;  building, 
maintenance,  and  material,  60 ; 
construction,  61 ;  cost,  65 ; 
grade,  65;  crevasse,  67;  de- 
fense, 68 ;  repair  in  flood,  71 ; 
extent  75;  revetment,  76; 
future,  77. 

Levisa  Fork,  230,  246. 

Lignite  coal,  179. 

Locks,  197;  table  of,  243. 

M.  R.  C.  grade,  66. 
Mattie  Atwood,  the,  138. 
Maumee-Wabash  route,  213. 
Merrill,  Major,  199. 


Minnesota  River,  21, 157, 229, 241. 

Mississippi,  Lower,  major  bed,  34, 

37;  minor  bed,  37,  79,  80,81, 

86,  88,  92,  97. 

Mississippi,  Upper,  12,  21,  25,  29, 

151, 166,  181,  249. 
Mississippi  River  Commission,  64, 

87,  96,  99. 

Mississippi  System,  1,  10,  13,  18, 

19,  21, 23,  33. 
Missouri  River,  12, 21, 25, 30, 169- 

181. 

Missouri  River  Commission,  172. 
Monongahela  River,  206,  240. 
Mouth  of  river,  102. 
Muskingum  River,  213. 
Mussel  Shoals,  244,  246. 

Ohio  River,  9;  hydrology,  21, 
24 ;  character,  27 ;  rapids,  158 ; 
movable  dams,  190 ;  Davis  Is- 
land dam,  199;  canalization, 
182, 189 ;  description,  183,  186 ; 
financial  statement,  201 ;  regu- 
larization  work,  186 ;  coal  fleets, 
258 ;  water-power,  202 ;  floods, 
203;  reservoirs,  203;  tributa- 
ries, 204. 

Ohio-Erie  Canal  Route,  214. 

Osage  Reach,  176. 

Overflow  lands,  38. 

Ozark  Mountains,  203. 

Pass,  197. 

Passes,  103,111,  114,  193;  head 

of,  139. 

Pass  a  1'Outre,  107,  141. 
Pittsburg-Erie  Canal,  214 
Plum  Point,  50,  55, 96. 

Rainfall,  source  and  distribution, 

22. 
Red  River,  21,  229,  233. 


264 


INDEX 


Red  River  raft,  233. 
Regularization,  80. 
Regulation,  36. 
Reservoirs,  35,  153,  180, 183,  187, 

201. 

Revetment,  88,  91,  174. 
Rough  River,  206,  230. 

St.  Anthony's  Falls,  156. 
St.  Croix  River,  21,  229,  241. 
St.  Francis  River,  21,  43,  229. 
St.  Francis  River  Basin,  42,  49, 78, 
St.  Louis  River,  canal  route,  210 ; 

power,  211. 
Shreve,  Henry  Miller,  108,  233, 

252. 

Silt,  44,  46, 48. 
South  Pass,  127,  130,  132. 
Southwest  Pass,  108,  148. 
Stack  Island,  96. 
State  work  on  rivers,  16,  231. 
Steamboats,  252. 
Storage,  151,  180,  187. 
Suspended  earth,  44. 

Tennessee  River,  204,  229,  236, 
246. 


Terminals,  259. 
Traffic  history,  251. 
Tributaries,  226-242. 
Tributaries  (of  the  Ohio),  204. 
Trunk  Line  routes,  10. 
Tug  Fork,  206,  230. 

Upper  Mississippi,  151-168. 
Utilization  of  channels,  251-261. 

Wabash  River,  206,  229. 
Washita  River,  229. 
Water-power,  35,   154,  155,  161, 

164,  170,   181,  202,  211,  222, 

245,  249. 

Weather  Bureau,  32. 
Weir,  197. 
Weitzel,  Major,  199. 
White  River  (Indiana),  206,  230. 
White  River,  21,  229,  236,  238, 

247. 
Wisconsin  River,  21,  163 ;  forest 

reserves    at    headwaters,    164; 

canal  route,  212. 

Yazoo  Delta,  44. 

Yazoo  River,  21,  229,  239. 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .    A 


UNIVERSITY   OF   CALTFQRNIA 
LIBRARY 

Due  two  weeks  after  date. 


Mtt   30 


FEB 

-TEIVED  BY 


1095,' 


188381. 


